Cobra Kai (2018) Review: The Bully Gets a Second Act

Is Cobra Kai worth watching?

Yes. Cobra Kai is one of the most successful legacy sequels ever made for television, a series that turns 1980s nostalgia into a genuinely funny and often moving story about grown men still fighting old battles. Its smartest move is to reframe The Karate Kid from the point of view of its former villain, and William Zabka’s performance makes that gamble pay off. The reservation is stamina: over six seasons, the rivalries repeat, the tournaments escalate and the plotting grows increasingly outlandish.

What is Cobra Kai about?

Thirty-four years after losing the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament to Daniel LaRusso, Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) is broke, drinking too much and stuck in the past. Daniel (Ralph Macchio), meanwhile, is a successful car dealer with a family, played opposite Courtney Henggeler as his sharp, practical wife, Amanda. When Johnny steps in to defend a bullied teenage neighbour, Miguel (Xolo Maridueña), he decides to reopen Cobra Kai, the aggressive dojo that shaped him, and the old rivalry flares up again as a new generation, including Tanner Buchanan, Mary Mouser, Peyton List and Jacob Bertrand, is drawn into it.

Cobra Kai was created by Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg. It is an American series in English that began on YouTube before moving to Netflix, where it became a major hit. This review covers the complete show: six seasons and 65 episodes between 2018 and 2025, with a finished story.

Johnny Lawrence as a comic tragedy

The series lives on Zabka’s performance. Johnny is out of touch, stubborn and frequently offensive, yet the show and its star find the damaged kid underneath: a man raised on toxic lessons who wants, clumsily, to be a better mentor than he had. Zabka’s timing, especially with his mangled grasp of technology and modern manners, makes the character one of the funniest on streaming, and his gradual growth gives the show real emotional weight.

Macchio’s Daniel is the other half of the equation, and the writers cleverly show that the original hero has his own blind spots, pride and resentment. The two men’s relationship, which swings between rivalry and reluctant respect, is the backbone of the whole run.

Teen drama with fight choreography

The younger characters give the series its soap-operatic energy. Their shifting allegiances between dojos, romances and school feuds play like a teen drama with karate in place of sports, and the fight scenes, often staged in schools, malls and backyards, are fun, energetic and increasingly ambitious. The show also carries over the original films’ concern with what teachers pass to students, asking whether a philosophy of aggression can ever be taught responsibly.

The nostalgia is handled with care. Familiar faces, locations and music return, but they are used to deepen the characters rather than simply to please fans, which is harder than the series makes it look.

Where the kicks get repetitive

Six seasons is a long time for a premise this simple. The middle seasons circle the same cycle of alliances, betrayals and tournaments, and later instalments push the stakes into increasingly implausible territory as the story expands well beyond the Valley. The large cast means some favourites get lost, and the teenage romances can feel like filler. The show never stops being entertaining, but its best episodes come early, when the scale was smaller and the jokes sharper.

Who should watch Cobra Kai?

It is an easy recommendation for fans of the Karate Kid films and for families looking for a show that parents and teenagers can enjoy together, though knowing the original 1984 film helps. Episodes are short, but the full run is a big commitment. The content includes martial-arts violence, bullying and plenty of mild language, all well within reach of older children and teens. More comedy-dramas sit on the same shelf.

If you want more in the same spirit:

• Ted Lasso for another funny, big-hearted show about a coach who changes the people around him.
• Outer Banks for teen-driven Netflix adventure with similarly heightened stakes.
• Never Have I Ever for high-school comedy-drama with the same mix of humour and heart.

The verdict

Cobra Kai takes an unlikely premise and turns it into a warm, funny, often thrilling series about rivalry, redemption and bad teachers. Its later seasons are overextended and repetitive, but William Zabka’s performance and the show’s affection for its characters keep it well worth the time.

Rating: 4/5