"Cobra Kai" Season 6: Part 3 Final Trailer Teases an Epic Finale to the Karate Kid Saga

The beloved martial arts series delivers its final round as Johnny, Daniel, and a new generation of fighters prepare for one last battle.

With all the online vitriol surrounding legacy sequels and beloved franchises these days, Cobra Kai somehow avoided all that negative chatter. This spin-off revival not only surprised everyone who loved the original Karate Kid films with its earnestness and reverence to the original franchise but also successfully introduced longtime fans to a new generation of karate kids without feeling forced or contrived.

Sure, the premise might have seemed silly at first—let's center the story around the bad guy from the original film, Johnny Lawrence (played by William Zabka), and make him a misunderstood figure. A guy who's rough around the edges but also genuinely trying to rebuild his life from the ground up. After all, Johnny was just as much a victim of the real villain, John Kreese (Martin Kove), as Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) was in the first film. So, the subversion worked here. Johnny became the underdog of this new story, while LaRusso, the once-bullied outsider, was now the presumptive champion with a lingering vendetta.

One could argue Cobra Kai is exactly how you should reboot and extend the universe of a beloved franchise—not by diverting too much from the spirit of the originals but by actively embracing why fans loved it in the first place. And you don't need to tear down beloved franchise characters just to make room for new, younger characters that most fans don't have much attachment to yet. Cobra Kai, in a way, exactly understood why fans loved the original Karate Kid movie so much. It wasn’t necessarily all about '80s nostalgia but more about living vicariously through an underdog character like Daniel, and now Johnny, as they overcome immense odds to achieve a goal they never could have imagined achieving.

With that being said, however, Cobra Kai ain't perfect. Does the show rely too much on easter eggs, callbacks, and fan service nonsense? Does it repeat itself too much with each season with ridiculous school fights, nonsensical rivalries, bullies, wild tournaments, and such? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. But with six seasons in, it's hard to say that any show running that long could remain untouched by repetitive tropes and silly characters. The show, for the most part, is a warm comedy, one filled with a lot of roundhouse kicks, karate chops, and crane-style discipline. Is the crane kick an illegal move? Sure. But in this world, it's the thing that wins championships.

Cobra Kai enters its last and final round. The show, running for six seasons on Netflix, though initially started as a YouTube Original, mirrored its own storyline as it became the little engine that could. It's a show that most people probably first laughed at and thought: what a complete waste of money and time? Only to become one of the biggest streaming shows in Netflix's history, cultivating a worldwide audience and helping launch the careers of Xolo Maridueña, Peyton List, and Tanner Buchanan. It also brought '80s icons William Zabka and Ralph Macchio back into the spotlight, reviving the Karate Kid franchise, and is moving on with a new feature, Karate Kid: Legends, coming out this summer.

From creators Hayden Schlossberg, Josh Heald, and Jon Hurwitz, Netflix is now planning to release the final third part of Season 6 of Cobra Kai, which will consist of five new episodes. And it promises an epic conclusion to a beloved franchise that began 40 years ago. Our only wish: could The Next Karate Kid star Hilary Swank sneak in a quick cameo in one of these last episodes? Probably not. But our fingers are crossed.

Cobra Kai never dies! And so, Season 6: Part 3 is set to stream on February 13th only on Netflix. Watch the official final trailer above.