Cobra Kai Midseason-Finale Recap: Child’s Play

I talk a lot about predictability in these recaps, but there’s a reason for that: Any ongoing competition-centered scripted series will eventually run into the challenge of keeping its outcomes fresh, whether it’s a sports drama like Friday Night Lights or something like Glee. The Dillon Panthers couldn’t win every state championship, and the New Directions couldn’t go to nationals every year.

I went into this batch of episodes broadly expecting Miyagi-Do to make it to the finals and most likely win against Cobra Kai at the end, though I figured there’d be some new permutations and twists to differentiate the match-ups from past seasons. That would leave the final five episodes of the season for … I don’t know, the birth of Johnny and Carmen’s kid, the second rise and fall of Terry Silver, and some general emotional closure on where these kids and their senseis will end up.

After watching “Eunjangdo,” though, it looks like we’re in for something quite different. Nothing exactly is “wrapped up” here in a traditional sense, even if many of the long-running rivalries have come to an apparent end. And I think that’s for the best; this way, the season doesn’t feel overly segmented or scattered. It’s one glorious, silly (but also tragic?) final chapter in the story of this group of hooligans, and we’re only two-thirds of the way through.

Early in this mid-season finale, the show completely reverses one of the decisions I actually liked in the last episode: Cobra Kai’s elimination from the competition. Apparently four students in the Russian dojo tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, so they’re out, and Cobra Kai had the next-highest point total. It’s too bad they’re back in the game because Robby’s latest run-in with Kwon did not go well.

The day before the semifinals is spent in prep, but the senseis’ heads are not in the game. Johnny can’t stop holding onto his baggage with Kreese, but Daniel is dealing with something even bigger. He’s just learned that the sensei whose teachings shaped his whole worldview was responsible for the death of another fighter, and Mr. Miyagi is really living rent-free in his head. It takes a pep talk from Miguel to get his senseis to focus; he reminds them that in many ways, they’ve carved their own paths and surpassed their own senseis. With that, they’re equipped with the energy and focus to dispense their own pep talks again.

The semifinals, which are broadcast live all around the world (shout out to Terry Silver’s media team?), essentially consist of four matches, two for each gender. The first two matches go how you’d expect: the captains from Furia de Pantera get completely dominated by Kwon and Zara.

But, alas, we may never get to see the finals, or even a fourth semifinals match. The fight between Robby and Axel is where everything falls apart. Axel is a beast with seemingly impenetrable defenses and super-strong hits. When he throws Robby into Kwon, though, Kwon decides to play dirty, elbowing Robby hard in full view of everyone (including the cameras, it seems). From there, the conflict escalates: Miguel jumps in to defend Robby and ends up fighting Axel, then Gunther, of all people, gets hit hard in the face and knocked to the floor. It’s Ivanov and his friends from the Russian dojo, back to fuck shit up.

Look, does it make a ton of sense how quickly the tournament devolves into mass chaos here? Not really. Everybody just kind of collectively loses their minds and tries to kill each other, like the church massacre scene from Kingsman. Entire eliminated teams (the Russian dojo, the Irish dojo) jump back into the fray for no reason besides, I guess, jealousy and anger. The fights that were already happening continue, too, with Tory fighting Zara and Robby taking on Kwon again. Fittingly, the senseis get involved, too, with Sensei Wolf fighting Johnny, a reappeared Dennis fighting Daniel, and Chozen teaming back up with Kim Da-Eun.

It’s basically all just an excuse for a crazy international brawl where whole European nations are scapegoated and it’s perfectly fine because this is Cobra Kai. (It feels like an ’80s sports movie in that way.) There are some good character payoffs here, though. Robby gets to pull Zara off Tory and tell her that he’d choose his actual girlfriend over this karate influencer any day of the week. Tory also has a small but nice moment teaming back up with Sam. And Johnny has a big growth moment in moving past his hatred for Kreese when he saves him from Silver, who could’ve easily killed him. (Never mind that Kreese went after Silver with a knife, intending to murder him in cold blood.)

Here’s where the fun stuff turns into serious stuff. Seeing Kwon land a deflating chest kick on Sam, Axel abandons his petty fight with Miguel and shifts his target. Watching Kwon up against this big guy is pretty great, especially when he gets kicked hard into the camera capturing all this. (Amanda and Anthony sit horrified and transfixed while watching at home.) But then Kwon sees the fallen eunjangdo and grabs it, running at Axel with the intent to really hurt him. Daniel sees it, undoubtedly flashing back to a memory he didn’t experience himself: Miyagi killing another young man in this same location over half a century ago. He needs to stop this; it can’t happen again. But it will.

Kwon doesn’t hurt Axel, but he does land on the knife himself, letting loose a scream loud and real enough to stop everyone else from fighting. As he bleeds to death out there on the floor, everyone stares in shock and horror. “Cut the feed!” Gunther shouts, and the episode accordingly cuts to credits.

It’s pretty damn intense for this show, and maybe for some viewers it’ll be too much. But I like the parallelism with Mr. Miyagi and the acknowledgment that danger has always been a very real part of karate for these characters despite the predominantly silly tone. Besides, this is a more intriguing outcome than a more traditional tournament, which we’ve seen plenty of times already. This ending upends the formula, refusing to put us through another Sam-Tory fight (“Sam-Tory chapter a billion,” as Demetri puts it) and perhaps throwing away the concept of a legitimate world karate champion altogether.

When Cobra Kai returns for its final episodes in 2025 (booo), will we still be in Barcelona, or will everyone be back in the Valley to process the emotional aftermath? Is the Sekai Taikai completely terminated, with no winner? Where exactly does karate come into the endgame of this karate show, and what would a true “final tournament” look like, if it exists at all? Maybe Cobra Kai is less about the championships than the friends we made along the way.

Mr. Miyagi’s Little Trees

• I liked the opening scene of Daniel’s Miyagi nightmare … until the “real” Mr. Miyagi showed up in the form of a seemingly AI Pat Morita, which made me feel very weird. Was that really necessary?

• Kim Da-Eun gets some more dimension in this episode when Tory asks her if becoming the very best was worth all the sacrifice. Her answer? “Absolutely.”