Netflix has officially announced that there will be season 4 of the Netflix series Cobra Kai. And we can already say that the cliffhanger of season 3 (which opens on January 8, 2021) is going to give a hundred turns at the end of season 1 and that of season 2 of Cobra Kai. One of the clauses of the agreement that the creators and producers of the series reached to leap Netflix consisted of continuing the story of the first three seasons with which they reached the streaming platform under their arms because at the moment when Cobra Kai made the transition to Netflix (the agreement was negotiated between March and April 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic) season 3 was already written, filmed and in post-production. The series entered to begin work on season 4, provided that the first two seasons were successful. Although the showrunners have never wanted to say how many seasons they have in mind, they have talked about continuity. One of the three creators of the series has assured that “we feel very fortunate to have four films with characters, worlds, and stories with which to work and from which we can continue to extract ideas as the series evolves”. The showrunners of the series have already confirmed that the first seven episodes are already written -of a 10-episode season-, so it is not too risky to say that season 4 will go into pre-production before the season premieres. 3 of the series on Netflix on January 8, 2021.
So far they have not finished telling us anything they wanted to tell us. As the first three seasons were originally intended, they all form a plot arc with development (season 1), middle (season 2), and outcome (season 3): the relationship between the characters of Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) has to be solved in Season 3 or this is going to be the game over and over again. In season 3 Okinawa and Kreese will end up reconciling. Season 4 will be clear: Now what? If we take into account that the door is open to the introduction of Hillary Swank, a new key character in the saga could have a new storyline. But there is no need to enter a new one because there are enough new characters that can gain weight from now on. And, also, it is not so clear that the outcome will not extend another season, to a fourth. We are going to make sense of all the things that have been leaking. Because the images of Sean Kanan, the actor who played Mike Barnes in Karate Kid 3, and together with Terry Silver, one of the favorite characters of the fans of the original saga, have us confused: or he is making us the biggest trolling from the (brief) history of trolling or is training to prepare for season 4. Both are perfectly possible. Let’s go with them.
The showrunners of the series have confirmed that the character of John Kreese will be one of the central elements of season 3, that they have not told everything they wanted against him, and that there is still much to see from Kreese. Beyond that, that Miguel does not die and will seek revenge (we already tell you that it does not have to be an eye for an eye, that there are many ways to get revenge) and how little they have let us see of Okinawa, official it is said an official there is still absolutely nothing. In season 3, parallel to Daniel LaRusso’s reunion with Kumiko, Chozen and the origins of his karate in Okinawa and with the words of Mr. Miyagui: “There are no bad students, only bad teachers” (because it has been clear to us that until do not solve your internal problems, Daniel is not going to be a good teacher),
So in season 3, we will have a bad teacher with good students and a good teacher with bad (that is to say) students, the crew that Kreese now trains. In between, Elisabeth Shue will return, even if it is only an episode, and, we hope, we will have a surprise. With that, plus the arcs of the rest of the characters in the series: Miguel (Xolo Maridueña), who in the last trailer of season 3 we have already seen that he recovers, Robby (Tanner Buchanan), who seems to be seduced by the dark side from the Force via Krees, and Sam (Mary Mouser), as well as Tory, Demetri, and Falcon – because Aisha has been gone from the show, at least for season 3-, should be more than enough. Kreese was thought of as the great villain of Karate Kid 3, but due to professional commitments he could not fulfill and ended up giving more weight to the character of Terry Silver. Season 3 should do John Kreese justice. So how does it fit that actor Sean Kanan has been posting things like these on social media:
And that the inventor of the crane kick posted this too after season 3 was shot:
There are two possibilities: one, that Sean Kanan wanted to control the fans, and two, that they are real images. If they are real, it can also be trolling: they can be images of his training for season 3 and not for, now, season 4. It could be perfect so there was no leak. In all the interviews Kanan has done since the series has been resurrected on Netflix, he has not released a pledge. Which does not mean that what the rest of the actors in the series tell is true. The showrunners have asked us not to listen to Martin Kove with John Kreese, so we shouldn’t listen to Kanan either. Because Kanan has an idea about what happens to the character that could fit perfectly into the series. At least not to us it suits us. We tell you and you decide.
According to Kanan, two things have happened to Mike Barnes: one, “he became an infinitely worse person than we had already seen and ended up in jail”; and two, “he gets into trouble and at one point they allow him to join the Army and redirect his life, fighting in places like Afghanistan.” The first scenario fits, but it has a dejá vu smell unless you get out of jail with renewed strength. The second is the good one: it results in the idea of a bad teacher, a good student.
The premiere date of season 4 would go to 2022, seeing that season 3 will premiere sometime in 2021.
