Tensions are high as Cobra Kai heads into the home stretch before concluding next year
Bienvenido a Barcelona, Miyagi-do Dojo! After a long, rocky road of trying to unite the students of Eagle Fang and Miyagi-do, the six fighters chosen to represent the San Fernando Valley dojo arrive at the Sekai Taikai tournament ready to show the world what they are made of. But tensions linger, and the realization that Tory (Peyton List) has gone over to Cobra Kai, once again joining their arch nemesis John Kreese (Martin Kove), puts everyone on edge.
The stakes are high onscreen, but for creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, the pressure in getting these five episodes right — the last before the grand finale that will be released in spring of 2025 — was even greater. “We’ve been talking about the idea of doing a world tournament for years,” says Hurwitz. “We wanted this to be something that the fans of Karate Kid have never seen before on the show, which was a next level tournament that amps up the danger, has unexpected twists and turns and different kinds of events than you’ve ever seen before.”
While the fights are bigger and the competition more threatening than in seasons past, the real challenge was to ensure the greatest tournament in the world felt, well . . . great. “Even though you’re not always in the competition space, it’s always looming and you’re always dealing with a win or a loss, with another fight to come. Being able to keep that pace going without feeling any kind of monotony was something that we strived for,” says Heald. “We’re fortunate to have so many dynamic characters, so many different points of view from the Dojos, so many pieces of conflict to lean into both emotionally and professionally between the adults and the kids, that it felt like one of the biggest storylines we’ve done.”
One of the most emotional arcs is between Tory and her former friends. Rather than let her fight angry, after the death of her mother, Daniel’s (Ralph Macchio) decision to force Tory into a time-out pushes her across enemy lines. “Tory, at the end of part one, is at her lowest place and it’s when you’re at that lowest place that you seek refuge. For her it was with Cobra Kai,” says Schlossberg. “So, she knows that with the bridges that she’s burned, she now has to be all in.” But trying to ignore her pain is bound to have consequences. “There’s a lot of emotional turmoil that she still has, and she’s going to be using all that energy towards her fighting. The question is, is that going to be something that propels her to victory or is it going to stall her?” muses Schlossberg.
Still at odds — or again, depending on your perspective — are dojo leaders Daniel and Johnny (William Zabka). “These two have had a will to reconcile the situation for a while now, and we’ve seen what that can look like,” says Heald. “We’ve seen them settle into something that feels semi-permanent. We’ve seen that get challenged. We’ve seen it go both ways. Entering the Sekai Taikai, these guys are in what feels like a final bad place. They’re idealistically on different pages and they’re going to keep it together enough to coach their teams. That clearly isn’t a healthy coaching environment. So, you can imagine what that’s going to do in the competition space.”
As the fights on the show become showier, the creators can’t help but be amazed over how far their cast has come in terms of portraying their own stunts. “Going from season one, where almost nobody, save Billy Zabka, had any ongoing martial arts training — everybody has been in the dojo the whole time since cameras started rolling back in 2017,” says Heald. “Seeing what everybody’s capable of now, we are able to keep our actors on screen with their full face, doing the martial arts, way more than we used to. The performers can’t be more proud of the work they’ve put in, because it reflects itself on screen.”
Where these five episodes now lead is the emotional ending to the series that awakened everyone’s nostalgia for the 1984 Karate Kid movie franchise. “It’s what we’ve all been waiting for,” says Hurwitz. “All the characters that you know and love, you’re going to see where we leave them. It’s going to be spectacular.” Yet, even if the end is near, the cast and crew see nothing but joy in the completion of the journey. “As we’re putting together the final episodes, it’s emotional because everything that we put into the show, everything fans have invested in, is coming to a giant payoff,” says Schlossberg. “It’s one of these special moments that only happens in television if you’re lucky enough to have a hit show that people like and follow. And this one is even more special than your typical TV hit show, because it’s over 30 years in the making.”
Cobra Kai, streaming Friday, November 29 on Netflix