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| In the fourth season of "Cobra Kai," William Zabka plays Johnny Lawrence and Ralph Macchio plays Daniel LaRusso. Johnny and Daniel were bitter foes in 1984. They must now find a way to collaborate. |
Johnny Lawrence is totally ticked off.
Separate boys' and girls' tournaments will now be held in the All Valley Karate Tournament.
In the forthcoming fourth season of "Cobra Kai," the Netflix revival series of "Karate Kid," he sneers, "Thought they were all about women's lib." "They should man up and take a punch like the rest of us," says the narrator.
"They" are females. If you couldn't tell from the entire "women's lib" stuff, he's stuck in the past.
"Women aren't supposed to fight," Johnny stated in the first season of the program. "They have small hollow bones," says the narrator.
The previous Cobra Kai head, played by William Zabka of "Karate Kid," however, wants his new Eagle Fang dojo to win the competition. Johnny, as much as he despises admitting it, requires female companionship. He tries running after them, but it doesn't work, so he gets a crash course in current terms. He'll be using the term "new masculine hierarchy" in a presentation to a possible recruit before long.
The student inquires, "What about nonbinary and gender-fluid people?"
Without missing a beat, Johnny responds, "Yes, fluids are vital." "It impairs performance if you don't hydrate."
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| In the Netflix series, Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence team up to take on Cobra Kai and his antagonist John Kreese. |
This is "Cobra Kai," a blend of current high school rivalries, combat sequences, and the anachronisms of an out-of-touch '80s tough man, with a healthy dosage of humor and "Karate Kid" nostalgia. The winning formula has propelled Johnny Lawrence, his former opponent Daniel LaRusso (Karate Kid Ralph Macchio), and their West Valley High School classmates to television fame.
"Cobra Kai," produced by New Jersey's Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald, has become a Netflix powerhouse during the last two years. The sitcom, which was nominated for an Emmy in 2021 for outstanding comedy series, originally gained traction on YouTube in 2018 and then skyrocketed after being moved to the streaming service during the COVID-19 epidemic.
The show's three co-creators, fresh from filming the fifth season in Atlanta, as well as two prominent cast members with Jersey ties, spoke with NJ Advance Media ahead of the fourth season debut on Friday, Dec. 31.
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| Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg, creators of "Cobra Kai," at the Emmy Awards in September, when the program was nominated for best comedy series. All three were born and raised in Jersey. |
One way the sitcom has attempted to prod Johnny into the twenty-first century is through his embarrassing change of heart on ladies in karate.
From Los Angeles, where the program is based, Heald explains, "He's such a Homer Simpson character at times." "He gets up and goes about his business. However, there's something cute about his attempt. Basically, he's one of those guys that may do questionable things because they're motivated by good intentions."
Girls have two significant roles in "Cobra Kai's" so-called struggle for the soul of the (San Fernando) Valley, despite the fact that boys and men dominate the combatant roster.
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| In the fourth season of "Cobra Kai," Tanner Buchanan plays Robby Keene, Peyton List plays Tory Nichols, and Martin Kove plays John Kreese. |
Samantha LaRusso (Mary Mouser), Daniel's daughter and a diligent student in his Miyagi-Do Karate school, has a fierce rivalry with Tory Nichols (Peyton List), a Cobra Kai dojo student.
Samantha's ex-boyfriend, Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan), Johnny's estranged son and Daniel's recruit, departs Miyagi-Do for Cobra Kai, which complicates matters. Miguel Diaz (Xolo Mariduea), Samantha's current lover and Johnny's first recruit for Cobra Kai, now a student at Eagle Fang — got that? — wants to study Miyagi-Do from Daniel.
Aside from the complexities of shifting dojo allegiances, forthcoming episodes make a statement regarding representation for female karate students.
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| Daniel LaRusso is played by Ralph Macchio, while Miguel Diaz is played by Xolo Marijuana. Diaz began his training at Cobra Kai with Johnny Lawrence. He practices Miyagi-Do karate alongside LaRusso after their migration to Eagle Fang. |
"We've always wanted to have more female characters on our show that weren't just there to be embroiled in family dynamics or love triangles," adds Red Bank native Heald, 44.
One approach to achieve this was to hold a changing karate competition.
"The upsurge of karate in the Valley has the potential to really sweep everybody up into it and be honest to the society we live in where it's not just young males practicing karate," says Heald, who has helmed episodes of the program alongside Schlossberg and Hurwitz. "If you go to any dojo, you'll notice that there are men and women, and that's something that needs to be portrayed on the program."
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| The Miyagi-Do home base serves as a training area for Daniel and Johnny as they prepare for the All Valley Karate Tournament. |
New friends, old foes
Johnny Lawrence reestablished Cobra Kai, the rival dojo to Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Miyagi's Miyagi-Do Karate, in a Los Angeles strip mall during the first season of the "Karate Kid" revival.
However, his former master, John Kreese, has taken over the space (Martin Kove).
Former Cobra Kai pupils are welcomed into Johnny's Eagle Fang fold (eagles do not have fangs; he simply thinks it sounds cool and they can kill snakes). Because Kreese is now Daniel's and Johnny's arch-enemy, the two former adversaries must band together to combat the old sensei and his devastating "no compassion" slogan. Whoever loses the All-Valley tournament must close their doors.
"This season was special," says Jon Hurwitz, who attended Randolph High School with "Cobra Kai" co-creator Hayden Schlossberg. "After three seasons of wanting Johnny and Daniel to be on the same side and work together, and perhaps form a friendship, season four, we finally get to see them with a common enemy."
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| Chris (Khalil Everage) and Demetri (Gianni DeCenzo), two of Johnny Lawrence's students, are subjected to Eagle Fang training. |
Macchio and Zabka's characters have taken tiny steps in that direction, even embarking on an embarrassing double date at one point — the actors, now 60 and 56, respectively, are executive producers alongside the creators. Talk about a tense love relationship. It's a classic case of will they or won't they.
There's something about their long-running feud that makes me feel proud. What is it about the new masculine order that keeps them apart?
To be sure, this isn't an easy coalition to form. Johnny's brash Eagle Fang style runs counter to Miyagi-peaceful Do's philosophy, matching the Cobra Kai method's adversarial threat.
Overpowering their common foe, though, maybe even more difficult for Johnny and Daniel. Because each stride forward in "Cobra Kai" is accompanied by an ongoing excavation of the past.
"Bloodsport" (1988), "Star Wars," "My Cousin Vinny" (1992 Macchio film) (watch for the ultimate Marisa Tomei/Mona Lisa Vito homage this season), and, of course, "The Karate Kid" are all referenced in the series.
Intercut with forwarding action are well-timed flashbacks to the John Avildsen-directed '80s volumes of the film franchise. Starting with Johnny's dramatic defeat against Daniel at 1984 All Valley and the consequences, the program is always revisiting and litigating pivotal situations.
"The more screen time these men have together, the more they're able to look back," Hurwitz, 44, explains.
Going a step further, each season introduces new "old" characters from the films. It's a skill that the program has pulled offseason after season without becoming monotonous.
Elisabeth Shue appeared in the third season as Ali Mills, Daniel and Johnny's ex-girlfriend (love triangles are a "Karate Kid" staple). Tamlyn Tomita, who played Kumiko, Daniel's love interest in "The Karate Kid Part II" (1986), was also returning, as was Yuji Okumoto's Chozen Toguchi, Daniel's prior opponent in a "battle to the death."
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| Martin Kove plays John Kreese, while Thomas Ian Griffith plays Terry Silver, the creator of Cobra Kai. Silver was last seen in the third installment of "The Karate Kid" (1989). |
Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), the total serpent from "The Karate Kid Part III" (1989), returns this season as the creator of Cobra Kai. Kreese's wealthy Vietnam friend returns to stir up some mayhem in the Valley's continuing war for its soul. While Johnny isn't familiar with him (he wasn't in the third film), Daniel is all too familiar with Silver's devious ways, having been subjected to his training techniques and insane schemes in 1989.
The horrible blast from the past may even make the heinous Kreese appear... not so bad?
Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), the Cobra Kai sensei, became Johnny's father figure when he stepped in to train a teen Daniel (for good and terrible).
In the "Karate Kid" universe, intergenerational cycles are powerful.
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| "The Karate Kid" stars Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita (1984). |
Johnny is pleased to act as a proxy for Miguel, who is now lamenting his own squandered opportunity to be a good parent to Robby. Robby, for one, seeks advice from Daniel before fleeing to Cobra Kai, where Kreese serves as a stern grandfather to both Robby and Tory — while Silver serves as their cunning, deep-pocketed fairy godfather.
Samantha, on the other hand, moves away from her father and embraces some of Johnny's Eagle Fang's do-or-die mindset (jumping off a rooftop is just one exercise).
Jersey, called 'Cobra Kai's moms,' arrives in the Valley.
"Cobra Kai," a program about Los Angeles karate that was filmed in Atlanta, has a lot of New Jersey links.
The most important link stems from before the rebirth. In the 1984 film that began it all, Daniel LaRusso went from Newark to Los Angeles with his mother.
Growing up in Morris County, Hurwitz and Schlossberg became friends over the "Karate Kid" origin myth. They went on to write the screenplay for the stoner road movie "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" (2004), which was followed by two sequels starring fellow Garden Stater Kal Penn and John Cho.
Schlossberg and Hurwitz practiced their own competitive interests at Randolph High School, but not with crane kicks, but with flawless verbal arguments.
"In the 1990s, Jon and I were the bad boys of the Lincoln-Douglas debate in New Jersey," Schlossberg adds. "You didn't want to mess with us," says the narrator.
Heald (co-writer of "Hot Tub Time Machine") recalls being an "alpha" marching band drum major at Middletown High School South, where he met Hurwitz while they were both students at the University of Pennsylvania.
"I used to play trombone in the marching band, but I thought it wasn't enough of a target for me," he adds. "So I put on a cape and stood on a platform and really put myself in the midst of the dartboard."
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| "Cobra Kai" stars Rose Bianco as Rosa, Vanessa Rubio as Carmen Diaz, and Xolo Mariduea as Miguel Diaz. |
Daniel's mother Lucille LaRusso (Randee Heller reprises her role from the movie) turns up at his Los Angeles house, now a grandma to Samantha LaRusso (Mouser) and Daniel's son Anthony LaRusso (Griffin Santopietro).
Schlossberg, 43, adds, "We adore Daniel LaRusso's New Jersey heritage, and we appreciate the concept that he has this big Italian New York family."
Also present is Daniel's cousin Louie (comedian Bret Ernst, who grew up in Passaic).
However, there are now additional Jersey-based mothers on the scene.
Carmen Diaz (Vanessa Rubio), the mother of "Cobra Kai" karate star Miguel Diaz (Xolo Mariduea), is played by Vanessa Rubio, who grew up in Lodi. Carmen is also having an affair with Johnny, her son's sensei (though they have yet to tell him).
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| Carmen, played by Vanessa Rubio, has Johnny Lawrence's heart. |
Miguel and Carmen, a nurse, bring out the best in the absent father, who seems to be more interested in frying bologna and drinking beer than being a role model. Training Miguel to defend himself against bullies and resurrecting Cobra Kai, on the other hand, energizes Johnny and gives him a sense of purpose. Carmen values his guidance, and their growing bond inspires him to be a better person. (He's still comically out of touch, thankfully.)
"Without Carmen, we wouldn't get to see and root for that side of Johnny," Rubio says during a break from filming the fifth season in Atlanta. In September, the cast and crew began filming new episodes.
Rubio has also starred in the Netflix programs "Bonding" and "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina." He lived in New York until moving to Los Angeles in 2020. She's been with "Cobra Kai" since its premiere in 2018, but in the fourth season, she was promoted from recurring character to series regular.
Rubio, 38, adds, "It's one of my favorite seasons." "You could tell the stakes were high." The show has a lot more credibility now. We've suddenly gained a lot of fan support, which is great."
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| Samantha LaRusso is played by Mary Mouser, while Amanda LaRusso is played by Courtney Henggeler. |
"We've gone through a lot of rebirth and recognition stages," Rubio adds, referring to the show's popularity since it debuted on YouTube Premium (formerly YouTube Red). "At first, something wasn't especially present. It fits well with 'The Karate Kid' overall underdog attitude."
Rubio grew up as the youngest of three children and attended Paramus Catholic High School and New York University. Her elder brother was such a big fan of "Karate Kid" that when she first met Ralph Macchio, she felt like she already knew him.
The film franchise, particularly Daniel's experiences as an underdog, "resonated a lot for all of us," she adds.
"We're a Latino family, and we've run into some issues," adds Rubio, a Colombian-born Afro Latina actress. (Carmen and Miguel are Ecuadorian Americans in the program.)
"After that, we all ended up doing karate," she recalls. Rubio's brother earned a black belt after instilling "Karate Kid" fever in his household.
Courtney Henggeler, a series regular on "Cobra Kai," plays Daniel's wife Amanda LaRusso.
She, like Rubio, is a Sagittarius (born five days apart) and a Jersey native — a native of Phillipsburg who grew up in the Poconos and Seaford, Long Island, with summers spent at the Jersey Shore.
She claims that "Karate Kid" was much like her childhood. "I was like, 'Oh, that's such a fantastic twist,' until I realized what the authors were doing with it."
Amanda LaRusso, who works with her husband at the family's auto company, relishes her status as a karate outsider. This allows her to keep a continual commentary on the tumultuous situations in which her husband, daughter Samantha, and their karate opponents find themselves.
"Excuse me, but there's an elderly sensei on his way to murder us?" Henggeler, 43, shifts into Amanda's tone and adds, "I'm sorry, what?" "It's a lot of joy to toy with the cosmos in that way."
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| Amanda LaRusso, played by Courtney Henggeler, is stressed out by the karate turmoil that her husband Daniel and daughter Amanda have brought into their family. What began as a friendly rivalry quickly escalated into a violent threat. |
She's still surprised by how the program manages to develop interesting "Karate Kid" characters like Terry Silver — and his particular fighting technique — even after three seasons.
Henggeler adds of 6-foot-5 actor Thomas Ian Griffith, "You've never seen anyone move like him." "He's like a goddamn Rockette with his legs."
However, Amanda's past will be fleshed out more in this season. Samantha's adversary, Tory, has placed the LaRusso family in jeopardy, and she's ready to bite the girl's head off. When Amanda discovers Tory is burdened by her own mother's sickness and is struggling to put food on the table, she goes above and beyond her protective parental instincts to help her.
Henggeler says, "Our program achieves this well – there's no black and white, good or evil." "If people are evil, we investigate and understand them, and at the very least we feel empathy for them."
As Daniel and Amanda discover, just because they provide their children with all of the "correct" influences — Mr. Miyagi's lessons and a loving family — does not guarantee that they will conform to expectations. It is always an option to do the "right thing."
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| This season, Daniel LaRusso's kid Anthony (Griffin Santopietro) disappoints his parents. |
Fans will continue to witness characters carve out their own paths, whether by brute force or by defending themselves. Netflix confirmed a fifth season of the show in August, far ahead of the fourth season's launch date.
Heald, Hurwitz, and Schlossberg inked a new four-year agreement with Sony Pictures Television's "Cobra Kai" studio in September. Because of the popularity of the "Karate Kid" revival, talk has turned to a possible spinoff series - and it seems like that's not all.
"Right now, we're concentrating on 'Cobra Kai,'" adds Schlossberg. "We have an ending point in mind for that show." It is unknown how many seasons there will be. However, we are so enamored with this universe and these people that there is so much background that we will not be able to cover in 'Cobra Kai.'
He adds, "We've also generated so many additional character branches that there are a lot of plot options." "We think about these things a lot, and we think there's a lot of potential in spinoffs, backstories, origin stories, and a lot of creative potential ideas to keep playing in the 'Karate Kid' universe, which is something we love doing and something we think will always be relevant because these themes are timeless," says the team.
The fourth season of "Cobra Kai" launched on Netflix on Friday, Dec. 31 at 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT.
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