Cobra Kai has proven to be one of the finest installments from the Karate Kid franchise, bringing about tropes and storylines that we just couldn’t have enough of. For one, it raged on the screens for over six seasons consisting of a total of 65 episodes, from May 2018 to February 2025, and I still feel heartbroken about the show going off air.
Yet, as excellent as it was in delivering all those plotlines, the series could have fixed quite a bit for some of the characters – like Mike Barnes. On the one hand, while William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence had a moving conclusion to his arc, I think there was the perfect way Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso could have saved Sean Kanan’s Mike too.
Daniel LaRusso could have saved Mike Barnes in Cobra Kai
While Mike Barnes was initially portrayed as a villainous character in the Karate Kid franchise, his character development in the later seasons of Cobra Kai was noticeable. Known for his ruthless fighting style, he was primarily used as a villainous tool by Terry Silver (played by Thomas Ian Griffith) to specifically target and hurt Daniel in the past, but this changed significantly.
For one, as seen in a surprising twist of events in the later seasons of the show, a somewhat redeemed Mike (played by Sean Kanan) helped Daniel LaRusso (played by Ralph Macchio) and his students limitedly as he ostensibly went through character development. This change had him getting on quite a few fans’ good sides, though his concluding arc could have been more satisfying.
In the sixth season of the show, he returned to the story to help Daniel and Johnny Lawrence (played by William Zabka) with their dojos in the Sekai Taikai tournament as his watchful and merciless self set up tests for the players competing for a spot in the tournament. However, although he helped them out, it wasn’t as a full-fledged sensei at a Cobra Kai dojo.
But this could have changed perfectly had the series adopted this theory instead: Had Daniel bought all the existing Cobra Kai dojos, he could have let Mike be a sensei in one of them. This would have served him better after his significant character development, for being saved by Daniel was the least they could do to redeem the second-most badass character after Johnny.
Meanwhile, Johnny Lawrence’s concluding arc was really satisfying
On the one hand, while Mike’s arc could have concluded better, on the other hand, the way they decided to end Johnny’s story was more than just satisfying – at least for me. For those unversed, with the support of Daniel and all the other students, he successfully ends up defeating Wolf, making Cobra Kai the ultimate champion – a satisfying turn of events indeed.
The events that followed this victory for Johnny were pretty pleasing as well. For one, it is because he, along with his wife Carmen Diaz (played by Vanessa Rubio), not only moves into a new home with their daughter Laura, but also returns to teaching the kids Cobra Kai karate as offense, with Mr. Miyagi supporting him by teaching them defense.
Because of this too, allowing Mike to be the sensei of a dojo bought by Daniel and teaching the kids the way of the fist would have further sat better in the storyline and left a more heartwarming conclusion for the show as a whole. But we got what we got, and things can’t really go any other way anymore, so, perhaps for now, to each their own.
Cobra Kai can currently be streamed on Netflix.
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