“Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are some movies that define a generation. For me, The Karate Kid was one of those movies. It had everything. Great action, a love story, a redemption arc, a fantastic soundtrack and score, and the acting was mostly pretty good. Oh, and like the name says, karate. Lots of karate. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen the first one. The second was always my favorite. The third one was even still good. So, when YouTube announced they were creating, and then Netflix picked up, a series rooted in the world of Karate Kid, but focusing on the bad guy dojo, Cobra Kai, I was intrigued. Eight years later, I finally got around to finishing the sixth and final season. I’ve been excited all week to talk about it. Let’s jump right in.

I’m going to intentionally keep this pretty short or else I’ll start to gush. And, trying to review six full seasons would take far longer than you’re interested in reading. Then there’s also this: I reviewed seasons three (here) and four (here) when they came out. All of that is to say I’ve done enough plot summarizing in the past to let us jump right into the main point today. Suffice for now to say this: The story has turned out to be one gigantic redemption arc for just about everybody. The sixth and final season which actually released in 2024 but which I have only finally just watched really puts a bow on the whole idea in the best possible way.

The sixth season was longer than all of the other seasons by 50%. Seasons one through five gave us ten episodes, the sixth was fifteen. And when it originally released, it was done in three batches over a period of several months. The focus of the season has been that the Miyagi-Do Dojo, co-led by Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), has been invited to compete in the Sekai Taikai, an international karate tournament in which the winning dojo will be crowned the best in the world.

The first third of the season focuses on their efforts to train for it and the two senseis and former enemies’ attempts to merge their very different forms of karate and personalities into one fighting style as they grow in their leadership as well as their friendship. The second arc takes place in Barcelona as they compete and deal with all the pressures of competition. Of course, their enemies show up in the tournament. Cobra Kai is there with John Kreese at the helm. There is also a new dojo, the Iron Dragons, who turn out to be funded and led by Terry Silver. The tournament ends in disaster when an all-out brawl breaks out that results in a Cobra Kai fighter’s accidental death as he was trying to murder another fighter.

The third and final arc brings things back to The Valley in Los Angeles where everything started. After initially canceling the tournament, Terry Silver, who just wants the glory for himself…and to vengefully humiliate LaRusso and Lawrence…manages to convince them to put it back on again. But this time it is going to be held in the very same gym that the original 1984 tournament used. And, because of how the tournament was interrupted, only the three remaining competing dojos will be involved, which, conveniently enough, means just Miyagi-Do, Cobra Kai, and the Iron Dragons.

In a twist that you’ll just have to go watch to understand how it became such a good thing, Miyagi-Do gets eliminated, and the final round winds up being between Cobra Kai, now led by Johnny Lawrence after Kreese quit in shame and disgrace after the death of one of his fighters finally pushed him to see how wrong his approach to karate and life was for all of these years, and the Iron Dragons, who, with Silver’s insistence, are prepared to cheat if necessary just so long as they win. The final contest between the students ends in a tie, and in a wonderful nod to the original and a completion of the redemption arc, the tie-breaking contest will be between the senseis of the respective dojos leaving Johnny Lawrence competing one last time to win and finally shake off the demons of his loss to LaRusso in 1984.

Honestly, I can’t remember enjoying a series as much as I have enjoyed this one, especially the final five episodes. Yes, the language was an ongoing problem, as well as the very much worldly approach to sex, but the whole thing was incredible prolife, pro-family, and in an only somewhat roundabout way, pro-Gospel. And there was just so much redemption. In this story, everyone gets a happy ending. Well, everyone but Silver who is the one, irredeemably bad guy in the whole thing. But fear not, his ending is entirely satisfying.

The last third of the season is really all about seeing relationships reconciled. Lawrence and LaRusso become not merely co-sensei, but friends. They become each other’s biggest cheerleaders and supporters. All of the kids are reconciled with each other in all the best ways. The villain from The Karate Kid 2, Chozen, steps into a role that almost mirrors that of Mr. Miyagi. He himself finds reconciliation with Cobra Kai’s founders, who had previously been mortal enemies. LaRusso, after learning some apparently disturbing things about Mr. Miyagi’s past, learns the rest of the story in a way that reconciles their relationship once again.

Perhaps the most shocking and most emotional reconciliation is that of Lawrence and Kreese. As I mentioned, the death of his student shakes Kreese, the hardened, bitter, angry former soldier and karate sensei to the core. He quits Cobra Kai, leaving what was intended to be his legacy in the hands of the founder’s granddaughter, who is a far more honorable replacement for her grandfather than Kreese would have been. More than that, in a beautiful scene of repentance, redemption, reconciliation, and restoration, Kreese tearfully apologizes to Lawrence whose life he ruined by his reaction to the loss to LaRusso back in 1984. He fully repents, and Lawrence finally breaks down and forgives him, freeing them both from the cell they had been locked in for so long.

And, at the very end, Lawrence finally gets the victory he was denied so many years before, but this time, instead of facing off against LaRusso, he is his friend and coach on the sidelines, and the one who speaks the truth to him that finally gets him to get his act together and get the victory that was always within his grasp. It was all satisfying in all the right ways. Netflix did a good thing giving the writers the space to tell the story they wanted to tell, and the writers absolutely nailed it.

Let’s not miss the most important thing here, though. Even though any sort of meaningful mention of religion is pretty much absent from the series, the simple fact is that the kind of repentance, redemption, reconciliation, and restoration the writers celebrated in the end is only possible in Christ. Apart from the Gospel command to forgive and the ministry of reconciliation we have been given in Christ, the kind of forgiveness the writers beautifully put on display just doesn’t happen. We don’t seek forgiveness on our own, we seek vengeance. And, yes, sometimes we see the awful, bitter fruit that grows when vengeance is given space to achieve its terrible aims, and that drives us toward a different path, but we nonetheless keep going back to the vengeance and unforgiveness because those are natural.

The Gospel offers us something different; something better. It offers us a path toward real forgiveness. It opens the door to our sins actually being redeemed, allowing us the freedom to release others from the debts they owe us because Jesus has already paid them all. All to Him we do indeed owe. Sin just leaves crimson stains of death everywhere it goes. The student who died at the end of the second act in pursuit of vengeance proves the point. That’s what lies at the end of the world’s path. In Christ we are offered a path to life, eternal life.

This is a life that is available to anyone and everyone for free. The price has already been paid in full. We only need to receive it by faith when we receive Jesus for who He really is: our Savior and Lord. When we confess His Lordship, and accept the historical truth that He rose from the dead, our sins are covered, and life is all that remains. And then, we can enjoy the sweet fruits of God’s kingdom just like all the characters in Cobra Kai finally did. If you are a child of the 1980s, and you haven’t watched this series yet, I’m really not sure what you are waiting for. If you like a good story of redemption, you really need to get on the ball. This one is worth your time. If you want the life that is truly life to which Cobra Kai points, Jesus is where you need to go. Don’t wait another moment to get there.