Summary
Cobra Kai Season 6 delivers big on the karate action in the tournament finals, but Episode 14 also builds to an explosive (literally) ending.
The final episodes of Cobra Kai Season 6 have been surprisingly light on karate, but Episode 14, “Strike Last”, makes up for that tenfold with not one but two bouts to determine the male and female champions of the Sekai Taikai. But that’s not all! The Kreese and Terry Silver rivalry reaches an explosive conclusion, and the finale is set up adroitly with a dramatically exciting but also thematically resonant premise. What more could you want?
In all seriousness, though, this is an excellent penultimate episode full of action and drama that is, in many ways, the show operating at the very peak of its powers. You could possibly make an argument that the outcomes are a bit too audience-friendly, but at this point, I’d argue we’ve had enough last-minute swerves and unexpected outcomes to justify the maximum catharsis approach.
Back Where We Started
Daniel has purchased the original Cobra Kai dojo on the cheap, so this is where Johnny will train Tory and Miguel — and reinvent Cobra Kai — in a series of fun montages that this penultimate episode deploys to do a lot of its heavy lifting for both camps. Johnny is on something of a redemption tour, while Wolf is determined to turn Axel and Zara into outright psychopaths.
It’s worth mentioning Axel and Zara, I think. It’s almost a shame that they have little function in these final episodes beyond being cartoon villains. Axel is a bit more complex, I suppose, since it’s clear that he’s not entirely suited to Wolf’s shady tactics and wants to win on his own terms, without cheating. But Zara is all for it. I looked Zara up since she’s so incredibly well suited to the choreography that I figured she must have a martial arts background. It turns out that’s a bit of an understatement. Rayna Vallandingham, who plays her, is a 13-time American Taekwondo Association champion and a fourth-degree black belt. At 22, she’s still the youngest person ever to achieve that feat.
Anyway, the montages are also full of really nice character moments between Miguel and Johnny and Tory and the LaRussos, bringing all of their character arcs full circle. There’s even an all-too-brief moment between Demetri and Hawk, where the latter reveals he turned down MIT so they could attend Caltech together.
The Finals
A lot of Cobra Kai Season 6, Episode 14 is devoted to the final bouts, and Tory and Zara are up first. These two have consistently delivered some of the best fight scenes in the show and Peyton List is much more convincing in action than Mary Mouser, so I’m glad this is the final we got.
Naturally, Zara whoops Tory initially until one of the show’s obligatory pep talks kicks in and she turns the tables. But the pep talk fittingly comes from Robby, who’s hobbling around on crutches and confesses his love to Tory to inspire her. She takes it on board — remember, her entire character arc has been feeling unloved and looking for it in all the wrong places — and batters Zara pretty easily, knocking one of her teeth out.
(L to R) Thomas Ian Griffith as Terry Silver, Patrick Luwis as Axel in Cobra Kai. Cr. Curtis Bonds Baker/Netflix © 2025
And then it’s time for Miguel and Axel. Just before the bout, Miguel finds an acceptance letter in Sam’s pocket for a cultural exchange program to Okinawa, so I naturally worried that this was going to throw him off. But in a clever subversion, he takes it really well and excels in the fight, essentially delivering a masterclass.
The real drama of this fight isn’t who is going to win, necessarily, but whether Axel will turn to Wolf’s underhanded tactics or lose on his own terms. And he chooses the latter, electing not to injure Miguel and instead lose a fair but competitive match. If we’d spent a bit more time with Axel — especially after his little subplot with Sam in Part 2 — I think this would have landed slightly better, but it works either way.
An Explosive Conclusion
Despite Cobra Kai having both the male and female tournament champions, they’re still tied with the Iron Dragons on points. Luckily, there’s a contingency in place for this very scenario. The tournament will be decided by a final match between the senseis of the two dojos. Johnny will take on Wolf. But we’ll deal with that in the finale.
In the meantime, Cobra Kai Season 6, Episode 14 pays off the long-running rivalry between Kreese and Terry Silver. Despite having already partially redeemed himself by letting Johnny take over Cobra Kai, Kreese intuits that Silver won’t let bygones be bygones. And he’s right. Aboard his yacht, Silver is planning to have Johnny’s family threatened to force him into throwing the match against Wolf.
Kreese isn’t having that, though. The two men fight aboard Silver’s luxury yacht, and when Kreese sees an opportunity, he takes it. He tosses his cigar into a puddle of spilled fuel, blowing up the boat and killing the pair of them.
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