Cobra Kai continues to be incredibly popular, toping the Netflix chart for most-watched show, after the release of Season 6, Part 2 earlier this month. But even with so many episodes under its belt, the series starring Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, Xolo Maridueña, Tanner Buchanan, Mary Mouser and Peyton List is still pushing its character to their limits.
As we saw in Part 2 of the show’s sixth season, that includes further exploration of Johnny Lawrence’s (Zabka) emotional side. Specifically, we see a more “tender” Johnny when he has to rush home from the Sekai Taikai competition in Barcelona, Spain, with Miguel (Maridueña), when pregnant Carmen (Vanessa Rubio) is rushed to the hospital. This was easily one of the most emotional moments in the season so far.
“That’s the edge of Johnny,” Zabka told Yahoo Canada. “That’s his tender spot.”
“He’s doing his best. He’s holding it all together and there’s these moments that happen … and it can all come unglued, and he just turns into that little boy again, in a way, and doesn’t have it all together. He’s got a lot of bravado on the outside, but inside he’s still tender. … It was emotional. It’s always great doing those scenes, I love when they write those scenes. And working with Xolo in those scenes is just magic, … the two of us have a good chemistry together like that.”
For Macchio’s character Daniel LaRusso, as he starts to spiral, uncovering details about Mr. Miyagi he never knew, including information about a death during Mr. Miyagi’s fight in the Sekai Taikai, we see the character in a particularly dark place.
“He’s spent so much time preaching and teaching Miyagi’s legacy, … so when he learns that things might not have been what he thought they were, it sets him off in a way that is probably unhealthy, but he has to sort of go through that spiral in order to come back,” Macchio said. “What’s evident in these five episodes, in Part 2 of Season 6, is the darkest and most out of control that he is, and where his decisions are warped by this information, and he realizes, maybe a little bit late, that he has to redefine that balance for the right reasons.”
“You always have to hit the bottom to come back up. … It’s all coming clear to him that he’s got to redefine everything. And it’s good when you’re at episode 60 of a show that you’re still finding new discoveries, even though it leads down an uneven path.”
‘Can’t let Terry Silver end up in jail’
If there’s one thing we’ve learned watching Cobra Kai for all these years it’s that we should be prepared for a threat to return. In the case of Season 6, Part 2, it’s one of the most vicious villains, Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), very ready for revenge.
“We wanted the end of Season 5 to come to this big climax where they finally get Terry Silver out of the valley, and you want that to have meaning,” co-creator Hayden Schlossberg said. “We want it where, if you get defeated on the show, you’re taken off the board, but like in chess if you can get your pawn at the other end, you could bring your piece back.”
“We like the idea of keeping Terry Silver away from our karate soap opera for a period of time, just so that when he re-enters, he comes back in with more energy. And we knew that from the very beginning, the way that he would want to get back at both Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai, is by just buying the best team in the world and having them take down both of his enemies. So it was all planned from the very beginning, and we knew that it was going be fun bringing him back into the show.”
Of course, the reintroduction of Terry Silver, who we first see in this part of Season 6 in a hot tub, also marks Schlossberg’s acting debut as the character’s attorney.
“Can’t let Terry Silver end up in jail, just for the charge of beating up Stingray,” Schlossberg said. “He would get off in real life, so [he had] to get off on the show.”
Watch: ‘Cobra Kai’ stars Ralph Macchio and William Zabka, and the show’s creators, spill details on Season 6, Part 2 finale brawl
Shocking Sekai Taikai brawl: ‘It was a little scary’
Cobra Kai fans are now waiting to see what happens after Kwon’s death, when the Sekai Taikai turns into a massive brawl, and Kwon picks up John Kreese’s (Martin Kove) eunjangdo knife. Zabka shared that filming that moment in Season 6, Part 2 was like theatre.
“It was a one giant stunt fight with all those things happening at the same time,” he said. “It was a little scary, really.”
“These guys are all amazing stuntmen, but you can imagine all those feet and legs and kicks and throws and everything, and nobody got hurt. … Then for us to come in and do our stuff, it’s fun. And we all knew this was coming, and we’re all looking forward to it. … In a movie you have plenty of time to shoot something like that, … on our show, we have a day. It’s crazy.”
“The stuff that Tanner and Xolo and all of them were doing, Mary and Peyton, it’s incredible to see the amount of work and dedication, and the pride they took,” Macchio added. “We all take pride in that, because it’s part of the acting. It’s not just a fight scene, it comes from the point of view of what’s going on emotionally.”
The show’s creators revealed just how much planning goes into crafting such an thrilling episode.
“We knew going into the season that we wanted to have one of those crazy brawls that we’ve had, like Season 2 there was the school fight, Season 3 there was the LaRusso house fight, and we wanted to have something that was next level for us,” co-creator Jon Hurwitz said. “The thing that was fun about doing it at the Sekai Taikai is every single person in that venue knows martial arts, … and there’s a lot of conflict between all these different students and senseis, some long conflicts that are 40 years old.”
“Each individual little fight that’s going on has to have some degree of meaning there for the audience, or else we’re not going to want to keep it in there. And each fight needs to be distinct in its own way, with different kinds of ups and downs. The pairings of people who are teaming up need to be fulfilling. It all comes from the character place and the story place from the start.”
Hurwitz also praised the “incredible” stunt team on the show, Don Lee and Ken Barefield.
“They’re able to bring in great stunt performers that [are] able to help train our cast, and we get to showcase our cast members at the highest level that they’ve ever been, and bring new challenges for them,” Hurwitz said. “There’s a lot of moving parts. There’s not a lot of time on a show like this, so working with our director, Sherwin Shilati, on that episode as well. It was well planned, well thought out, and us running and gunning and hustling the best that we could.”