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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
49
Mixed:
9
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
ColliderSep 6, 2022
Season 5 Review:
Cobra Kai Season 5 is a showcase of the best elements of the series, despite a bit of roughness around the edges. The latest installment features some big laughs and impressive fights but also sheds a light on what's to come without feeling like it's just a set-up for the next season.
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ColliderJul 18, 2024
Dec 28, 2020
Season 3 Review:
Three seasons in, creators Heald, Hurwitz, and Schlossberg preside over a scorching hot sandbox that’s as complex as it is cluttered. Characters keep emerging from the shadows, beats zig and zag at a rapid clip, and the action gets more and more ludicrous. But, clutter can be good for a series, particularly when it’s maintained, and the three showrunners happen to keep a clean dojo.
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Apr 25, 2018SlashfilmJul 18, 2024
Sep 9, 2022
Season 5 Review:
Crossing the streams with its sequels, the fifth season of "Cobra Kai" features heavy dollops of the second and third "The Karate Kid" movies while continue to carve out its own next-generation melodrama, all in extraordinarily nimble fashion. While it's not the best series on TV (OK, Netflix), there should be some kind of prize for the best revival culled from limited source material.
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EmpireDec 27, 2021
Season 4 Review:
There’s nothing quite as bonkers as Season 2’s high-school rumble (the Jets and Sharks have nothing on these warring dojos), but this fourth year is a glossier affair, capped with a show-stopping finale that somehow manages to raise the stakes yet again as it sets the scene for Season 5.
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RogerEbert.comDec 31, 2020
The TelegraphDec 28, 2020
Season 3 Review:
Call-backs to the movie are as ample as fans would demand. At the same time, the show refuses to wallow in the past, preferring to drag it screaming into the present. Cobra Kai will continue to thrill Eighties kids. But it is no museum piece and viewers insufficiently ancient to appreciate the totemic significance of phrases such as “wax on/wax off” will still get kick from it.
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Jul 18, 2024
Season 6 Review:
As the series has gone on, the storylines have become far too familiar and repetitive. .... But then, like the underdog story the series is rooted in, Cobra Kai rises from the ashes to come out on top. By the end of the five episodes that premiere as part of this first tranche of the sixth season, the series delivers one heck of a cliffhanger.
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Dec 27, 2021
Season 4 Review:
Quite a few storylines are dropped or not completely followed through on, though, which really stands out when you can stream all 10 episodes back to back. ... But despite my quibbles, I still love Cobra Kai. The show is such an enjoyable romp. I’m happy to spend time with the characters and their karate-loving world no matter how inane the story lines might be.
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Sep 6, 2022
Season 5 Review:
With a cast this big, and with so many intertwining soap-opera plotlines, it’s inevitable that the season would meander a bit. But bringing Griffith back as Silver turned out to be a masterful move on the part of the show, teasing out new dimensions to the show’s existing ruminations on revenge. It hasn’t quite swept the leg yet, but at least Cobra Kai is back on its feet.
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Sep 6, 2022
Season 5 Review:
If you fully embrace the absurdity of this world, Season 5 is a blast. But if you stop for a few seconds and think a little too hard about some of the story beats and twists, the seams start to show. But even with the seams, Cobra Kai remains as wildly compelling and fun as ever.
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Jan 3, 2022
Season 4 Review:
Cobra Kai is still a good deal of fun. ... The fear is that the show’s starting to lose sight of its central lesson: Perhaps it’s best not to obsess over the past, as it can lead you to neglect the present. Right now, the show exists in a liminal state between depiction and endorsement, and if it’s not careful, it can slip off the tightrope far too easily.
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Dec 28, 2020
Season 3 Review:
The finale points toward an endgame. And that finale is wonderful, wonderful, ridiculous, and wonderful: A high energy showdown for youth in revolt, alongside a never-more-sensitive portrayal of middle-aged reminiscence. It reaffirms Cobra Kai as one of the cleverest reboots in our nostalgia-drunk era.
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May 2, 2018
Season 1 Review:
All the trite talk of nerds and mean girls feels like it’s from a forgettable teen soap. But the foundation of Cobra Kai is solid: Not only does it deliver on the ’80s retro fun we expect--yes, Johnny and Daniel do face off across a karate mat once again--but it goes beyond that, forcing us to grapple with exactly why we want to see Johnny and Daniel face off again so badly.
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Apr 30, 2018
Season 1 Review:
Turning Johnny from a villain to a sympathetic character and showing some of Daniel’s flaws humanizes both men. However, while watching the first two episodes I was left a bit confused as there isn’t a clear antagonist or protagonist. ... If you’re a child of the 80s seeing how things have played out for Johnny and Daniel will be right in your wheelhouse.
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Jul 18, 2024
Season 6 Review:
Miyagi-Do is perfectly capable of coming apart at the seams on its own, it would appear, though by the final episode of Season 6 Part 1, a wonderfully rocky road lie ahead. It's the longest the show's ever been this "light," but with the danger levels low, there's room to enjoy the calm before the storm and spend time with this fun cast of characters.
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Jul 18, 2024
Season 6 Review:
With Kreese back in the center of the action, everyone working towards Sekai Taikai and an extended final season in 2024 and “final battle” in 2025 on the horizon, we can see Hurwitz, Schlossberg and Heald focusing and being able to bring Cobra Kai to the finish line with a funny, emotionally affecting story.
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Jan 1, 2021
Season 3 Review:
Cobra Kai still has a great combination of character depth and self-referential humor that makes it one of the best shows of the reboot era. We’re just a tad afraid that the story has nowhere to go and will get more ridiculous than the first two seasons, but not in a good way (like those first two seasons).
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Dec 29, 2020
Season 3 Review:
The new season has flaws in its efforts to give its story new dramatic underpinnings, and those flaws at times really bugged me. The new season is also the closest creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg have come to evoking the actual tone of the original franchise.
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Apr 24, 2019
Season 2 Review:
Flawed as this second round may be, “Cobra Kai” remains worthwhile viewing with a slew of conversation starters, though perhaps not the ones that made the series worth recommending the first time around. But it remains entertaining enough to merit a sequel, even if only to find out whose way wins out in the end.
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May 2, 2018
Season 1 Review:
Even if Cobra Kai is a little too in love with its evocations of the movie, there is still something compelling about seeing Johnny and Daniel back together, particularly because both men haven’t changed in key ways and have different ways of grappling with and denying that.
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May 2, 2018
Season 1 Review:
This show gets a lot of things right from the perfect amount of references and music from the original and the acid-washed 1980s where the movie reigned supreme to the impressive casting and acting. .... That said, Cobra Kai relies on coincidence far too often even for a show spawned from the decade of decadence.
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Dec 28, 2020
Season 3 Review:
There are still more than a few moments of badly engineered plotting and situations that leave you dumbfounded none of these kids have called the police; but Cobra Kai isn’t trying to score points for believability. Season three pummels you with enough broad laughs and over-the-top twists to keep you coming back to its televised dojo, no matter how often it backslides into hokum.
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IndieWireApr 24, 2019
Season 2 Review:
One could wax on (wax off) about these representation issues, but the show’s strength is also its weakness. “Cobra Kai” is simply too accurately a product of that specific ‘80s franchise. Sure, it could change, but why should it? The series remains entertaining despite its flaws, and fortunately it has a hero that negotiates this disconnect between retro mindset and contemporary consciousness.
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IndieWireMay 2, 2018
Season 1 Review:
The energetic if not terribly sophisticated martial arts choreography is entertaining, and a fight sequence that takes place in the school cafeteria is fun in a completely unrealistic way. Perhaps because of its throwback vibe, “Cobra Kai” is able to get away with some of its more problematic issues.
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Jul 18, 2024
Season 6 Review:
My continual gripe is that I wish co-creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg would let scenes play out more, instead of flipping between different story threads like a bored viewer flipping between TV channels. I think audiences aren’t quite that restless, and anyway there’s a cure for that: Better writing. As always, Johnny is the most compelling person on screen.
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Apr 24, 2019
Season 2 Review:
Season two is content to repeat many, or even most, of the beats from the first season, only without the freshness and genre-upending sense of surprise. The second season of Cobra Kai is too much of the same made with the expectation that the series can be an underdog forever.
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Apr 24, 2019
Season 2 Review:
It’s not until the second-to-last episode that anything approaching the goofball charm and wit of its freshman season arrives, and by then the entire narrative is so weighed down with the baggage of its sudsy dramatics that the show feels less like a witty relaunch of a beloved film, and more like a 2019 version of Beverly Hills, 90210 (but not, you know, the 2019 version of Beverly Hills, 90210), complete with hokey music sequences and soap opera-level plotting.
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The Daily BeastJul 18, 2024
The Daily BeastJan 3, 2022
Season 4 Review:
Cobra Kai’s overt nostalgia is of a simplistic dudebro variety, marked by Johnny’s neanderthal attitude and routine references to the likes of Rocky III, Bloodsport and Top Gun. Yet more objectionable is its regressive sitcom form, which reduces its comedy and romantic/familial/peer dilemmas to a fourth-grade level. For a season or two, that might have lent the show a quaint charm. At this point, however, it’s just a sign of everlasting immaturity.
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