Netflix announced Cobra Kai’s Season 4 renewal weeks before the Season 3 premiere, solidifying that, even though it’s been 34 years since underdog Daniel Larusso (Ralph Macchio) first teamed-up with shrewd sensei Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), this TV sequel is the very best around. The stakes that were initially increased in Season 2’s riveting cliffhanger got leveled up in the most recent round of episodes leaving us with a whole load of questions about where things will go when the series returns. So, in that speculative spirit, here’s what we know about Cobra Kai Season 4.
Throughout the first three seasons of Cobra Kai, we have watched as the fantastic guy/bad guy dynamic of Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and Danny Larusso got flipped on its head. Adding humanity to the characters and introducing Johnny as a good-hearted underdog using a dark ago set the stage for the morality performs the show has continued to cast us for three fantastic seasons.
Of course, the major gist of Season 3 discovered each personality reeling in the karate brawl that transpired in the halls and staircases of East Valley High at the end of Season 2. It is here that Samantha Larusso (Mary Mouser) confronted Tory (Peyton List) in a brawl that renders her with bodily and mental scars. Hawk’s (Jacob Bertrand) plays his former best buddy Demetri (Gianni Decenzo) comes to a head in this epic battle series, leaving the two nerds drifting further apart. Nevertheless, it’s finally the destiny of Miguel (Xolo Mariduena), who had been kicked on the railing by Robby Lawrence (Tanner Buchanan) — leaving Miguel comatose and paralyzed, and Robby incarcerated — which drives the entire season ahead.
Johnny and Daniel fight to re-establish their roles in all this and it is clear that the responsibility for the violence rests greatly on their shoulders. John Kreese (Martin Kove), on the other hand, is only out here residing his very best life. He is the maestro of this ongoing karate war, resulting in teens spilling blood and breaking bones. And while Kreese has been the end-all-be-all in regards to’80s film villains, Cobra Kai went forward and humanized him. Flashbacks gave us a peek into his time serving in Vietnam and disclosed that once, years past, Kreese was a good-hearted underdog who had been dealt an unfortunate hand. The trauma of warfare, in addition to the death of his girlfriend, cemented these moments as the source story for the major poor who views everything in life for a war that needs to be won.
After all is said and done, it is Kreese’s manipulative hunger for power that sparks another brawl to take place — this time inside the LaRusso real estate, of all areas. And each of the chaos leads Johnny and Daniel to squash their beef and unite dojos with the end-goal of taking John Kreese down once and for all. To perform it, Johnny’s newly-named dojo Eagle Fang, Together with Miyagi-Do, Will Need to battle it out with Cobra Kai at the iconic All Valley Karate Tournament in Cobra Kai Season 4. How else do you solve disagreements in the Karate Kid world?
We all know there’ll be a Cobra Kai Season 4, but given the sensitive nature of film shoots throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the deadline is not solid. While we may not know when the next season will premiere, there are some encouraging signs that things are going in the right direction. In October of 2020, string co-creator Jon Hurwitz utilized Twitter to tells fans that the writers’ area for Season 4 had closed.
At the end of November, Hurwitz tweeted about production plans for the new season, stating “Planning for premature 2021. Most productions have been safe. But we will find out how things are searching after the New Year. Hopefully, we can get the numbers in check.” Ralph Macchio additionally verified to Inverse that filming hadn’t started yet in December 2020.
If the production schedule goes forward as planned, we could only speculate that Cobra Kai Season 4 will probably strike Netflix in early 2022. Hurwitz backed up that idea on Twitter when responding to a fan about the show’s future, saying he “would envision Season 4 will come out about a year after Season 3.”