Cobra Kai (say it with me) will never die. Sure, the dojo has been kicked out of the Valley, and most of the core cast on the Netflix series has stuck with Miyagi-do. Yet the specter of John Kreese (Martin Kove) still lives on in the show, even while he’s hallucinating and attempting to bring his own competitors to the Sekai Taikai world championships. Actually, the karate baddie somehow succeeded, which is where the Karate Kid spin off series ended Season 6 Part 1 before the show went on planned hiatus during a supersized final season that is split into three parts.
Next year, another Karate Kid movie will grab the baton back, and showrunners Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald, and Hayden Schlossberg have been suggesting that there could be more TV coming. First, however, they must tie up this Netflix series with three mini-seasons, so let’s start roundhouse kicking toward what we can expect from the next five episodes.
Plot
As viewers will recall, the final moments of Season 6 Part 1 showed that Tory (Peyton List) had followed up her decision to leave Miyagi-do with an even worse decision: to join Kreese’s new dojo and face off with her fellow teammates at the Sekai Taikai tournament. Tory’s choice was tragic and was surely fueled by the death of her mother, but Kreese is the closest thing that Tory has had to a father figure, and he actually did do good by her in earlier seasons before deciding to rig her tournament win. The Tory reveal also hit the soap-operatic notes that the show has become famous for because damn, Robby (Tanner Buchanan) had no idea of the whereabouts about his supposed girlfriend? Damn, Robby.
As for what we can expect from the upcoming episodes, a series of tidbits from the cast and showrunners have rolled out.
Jacob Bertrand, who portrays Eli “Hawk” Moskowitz, admitted to relying upon music to “get in the zone” during his character’s phases throughout the show. More specific to the upcoming episodes, however, Bertrand disclosed to Games Radar that the Sekai Taikai tournament will dominate: “There’s a fight every single episode and each fight is bigger than the last. It is absolutely insane. There’s some very big falls from grace.” He further added, “You can’t make everybody happy, but I was happy with the ending.”
Additionally, expect turmoil to go down in the psyche of Daniel LaRusso. Ralph Macchio told Good Housekeeping that Daniel-san will not be able to let go of Miyagi’s hidden box of secrets, and he will feel “hurt and pain” about being kept in the dark by his sensei. This, in turn, will cause conflict with his family and Miyagi-do:
“For Daniel, when we discover and introduce this box of Miyagi’s secrets, clues of a life that may have not added up to him … that’s a big part of the arc. Daniel winds up wondering and not understanding why he wasn’t told of things, and the hurt and pain of that. But also, the deeper he tries to unearth it, the more tangents he goes off on and potentially loses his focus on his students and his family … He needs to fight some real kicks in the gut, and find a place within his heart and soul to get through it.”
Macchio did promise, “Things will eventually make sense as to why [Mr. Miyagi] motivates Daniel in this specific story, and I’m looking forward to that.” And a reminder: “The legacy of [Cobra Kai] is blurring the lines of good over evil — overcoming the obstacles and finding your inner self.”
What else? The showrunners have been attempting not to spoil too much, but they talked, too. This includes Jon Hurwitz revealing to Screenrant that “in Part 2, there will be a character from a Karate Kid movie in the past who shows up in the middle five, so there’s something coming. There’s somebody coming who fans have seen in the past, that’s all I’ll say.” Whereas Josh Heald told Collider of the Sekai Taikai, “Any idea of what you think a tournament is in the universe of The Karate Kid or Cobra Kai will be completely upended. It will be absolutely nothing like an All Valley. Buckle your seatbelts.”
Meanwhile, we didn’t see much of the tournament setting in Part 1, but what we did see suggests that Jacob Bertrand did not receive his previous wish to “actually go to Brazil or something and not like it have it be, ‘Oh we’re in Brazil! But it’s really just a basement studio in Atlanta.’” Sorry, Hawk.
Cast
While Ralph Macchio’s Daniel-san stresses the hell out, his dojo (which also belongs to William Babka’s Johnny) is looking to shine at the tournament with Mary Mouser as Samantha, Xolo Maridueña as Miguel, Jacob Bertrand as Eli/Hawk, Tanner Buchanan as Robby, Gianni DeCenzo as Demetri, and Dallas Dupree Young as Kenny. As noted previously, Peyton List/Tory has gone to the Kreese (Martin Love) side, which also includes Brandon H. Lee as Kwon.
Paul Walter Houser already cameo’d as Stingray, who sadly has no place at the tournament. We will surely see the return of Courtney Henggeler as Amanda, Vanessa Rubio as Carmen, and Griffin Santopietro as Anthony LaRusso.
Release Date
Five more episodes will arrive on November 28, which happens to be Thanksgiving Day. The third batch will arrive in 2025, followed by the upcoming The Karate Kid movie set for release on May 30, 2025.
Trailer
No trailer yet, man. This is, however, a great opportunity to relive Johnny Lawrence’s “sent it to the internet” moment: