‘Cobra Kai’ Ending Explained: Co-Creators Spill on Those Final Moments

After seven years, six seasons, two streaming homes, and one extended final stretch, Cobra Kai has finally come to an end. The Karate Kid spinoff’s last five episodes arrived on Netflix on Thursday (February 13) and brought the series to its triumphant conclusion.

So how did the story conclude? Here’s a breakdown of everything that happened in the last part of Cobra Kai‘s final season, with some exclusive details shared by co-creators Hayden Schlossberg, Jon Hurwitz, and Josh Heald.

The Sekai Taikai was shut down and brought back to a new location.

After the deadly events of the Sekai Taikai in Barcelona, the tournament came to an abrupt end in Barcelona, without winners declared. Although Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) wanted to put karate in the past, Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) had other ideas. He convinced the leaders of the tournament to reinstate it — only if all senseis were on board, of course — and Daniel eventually got on board. Instead of returning to Spain, though, the international tournament would take place right there at home in California.

Johnny (William Zabka) finally embraced being a family man.

With some key advice from his old pal Bobby (Ron Thomas), Johnny finally decided to overcome his fear of failure, propose to Carmen (Vanessa Rubio), and stage a quickfire wedding at the hospital right before she delivered their baby girl, who they named Laura after Johnny’s mother.

John Kreese (Martin Kove) finally made things right with Johnny.

After apologizing to Tory (Peyton List) for failing her as her sensei, Kreese decided to visit Johnny with the proverbial hat in hand as well. First, he thanked Johnny for saving him from Silver and then said that his biggest regret in life is how he treated Johnny after he lost the All-Valley Tournament to Daniel all those decades ago. Though Johnny wasn’t willing to forgive him for his wretched behavior, their emotional conversation did allow Johnny to express his feelings of betrayal and the torment he’s dealt with ever since.

Of the scene, Schlossberg told TV Insider, “That was always the intention. That’s been something that we’ve been talking about doing for years. I remember like in Season 4 or 5, in a scene with Billy Zabka and Marty saying, ‘Listen, you guys have to really hate each other ’cause the audience is gonna love it when you come together, but we need to see how much Kreese is haunting Johnny to understand why he needs resolution there.”

The executive producer continued, “That was just a powerful scene in a vacuum. But given their history, given that these are actors and characters that we’ve seen on screen with this relationship for 40 years, when you actually do it, and they play it with such emotion and such intensity, it’s the most visceral scene that we’ve had on the show. Because you just really see the teenager in Johnny’s eyes when he’s crying. You feel his childhood there in a way that you just don’t feel with other actors in other movies, ’cause there isn’t that actual visual history that the audience has with these characters. They knocked it out of the park. There was a lot of prep that went into it, talking about it, and on the day Billy just sold it, and Marty reacting off of him, it was perfect.”

Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan) decided to move on from the mat.

After a disappointing meeting with a guidance counselor, Robby was advised to start considering a future that doesn’t include karate, and he was forced to take a break from it after suffering an injury in the Sekai Taikai and passing over the mantle of lead fighter to Miguel Diaz (Xolo Maridueña). With that, another truly bitter feud ended on a high note with these two, but what’s next for Robby?

According to Schlossberg, “I think he ends in a place where he has a lot of good relationships in his life, and he didn’t win, but as he says, he knows he could have won. We saw him earlier in the season beat Miguel, who ended up winning. His future in karate seems like it’s bright still and he has more to prove, but he doesn’t need to win in the way that his dad felt that need because he’s had a better childhood journey at the end, and things ended in a good way. So, much like Daniel and The Karate Kid, you feel like, ‘Okay, his story is gonna go in a positive direction instead of a downward spiral.'”

Sam (Mary Mouser) is heading to Japan instead of UCLA.

Though she declined to fight in the Sekai Taikai — which meant Tory had to fight instead — Sam is still following in her father’s footsteps by heading off to Japan to study. It’s bittersweet for her and Miguel, though, as he’s going to Stanford, so they’ll be continents apart. Still, they’ll get a few more precious weeks together, as Miguel decided to defer for a few weeks to join her in the Land of the Rising Sun for a while.

Cobra Kai came back with a vengeance.

At the Sekai Taikai, Miyagi-Do did not return to fight. Instead, it was Cobra Kai, now under the leadership of Johnny. Daniel graciously decided to re-rent the dojo for Johnny and encouraged him to reclaim its name. After some training, Miguel and Tory were on hand to fight for the dojo against Sensei Wolf’s prized fighters Axel and Zara, and both Cobra Kai fighters emerged victorious. Still, there was a tie in the overall score, which meant it had to come down to the senseis on the mat.

Kreese and Terry had a fiery end.

Kreese did more than just talk about his regrets. He also acted on them. He joined Terry on his fancy yacht, and the two had a war of words in which Kreese praised his student, Johnny, for surpassing his teacher. After the argument became physical, Kreese used his signature cigar to ignite a gasoline spill and blow up the boat with both still on board. Talk about no mercy. Terry was already doomed after being diagnosed with a terminal disease, but this ending was much more fitting, according to producers.

Jon Hurwitz explained, “Those characters met at war way in the past, and we saw them getting to know each other in their youth, and over the years they’ve had a very complicated relationship, and once Terry Silver had Kreese framed a couple of seasons ago and locked up, you knew there was no love lost. We got a taste of the two of them fighting in Episode 610, but at the end of the day, we knew from the very beginning that we wanted Kreese to realize the error in his ways and to properly sacrifice to protect Johnny. So that’s where we started from a character standpoint.”

The decision to make such a bombastic, so to speak, scene was met with some resistance, however. “The idea of them being on a yacht that explodes was something that was just the fun popcorn in us. At the beginning of the season, we remember pitching to our partners at Sony and Netflix… ‘Okay, so then they’re gonna be on this yacht,’ and they’re like, ‘Whoa, whoa, hold it. Slow your roll. You’re a half-hour comed,y and you have a half hour comedy budget, and you already have a zillion characters on the show. How are we paying for this?’ And we’re like, ‘We’ll figure it out. This has to be an explosion.’ Those two characters are so larger than life that we wanted that moment to be spectacular and unpredictable and really pack a punch.”

Johnny defeated Sensei Wolf after reckoning with his own loss.

Throughout the final battle between Johnny and Wolf, Johnny struggled to find his balance — especially as Wolf pulled out a series of dirty moves, including an elbow to the face and a knee to his side. As Wolf then brought out a few fancy moves he didn’t recognize, Johnny went down memory lane in his mind to the moment when he saw young Daniel doing his crane kick maneuver and got back to basics. With a leg sweep and a backhand, he was able to claim the final point and thus victory for Cobra Kai.

Chozen (Yugi Okumoto) and Kim Da-Eun (Alicia Hannah-Kim) will live happily ever after… we think!

After their surprise hookup earlier in the season, the rival senseis went their separate ways, with Kim taking a stand against her oppressive grandfather and claiming the dojo as her own. After the Sekai Taikai, Chozen decided to join her, and it’s clear these two tough guys are ready to be each other’s soft spots.

Cobra Kai is under new management — with some help from Miyagi-Do.

After the tournament, the dojo welcomes in a slew of new members, with Johnny recapturing the true meaning of the Cobra Kai slogan, “Strike first. Strike hard. No Mercy.” He isn’t working alone, though, as he is also sending his students over to Miyagi-Do for Daniel to teach them about the art of defense. The story concludes with Daniel and Johnny having dinner together, with a fly recalling the most famous scene from the initial movie. As Daniel goes to catch it with chopsticks, the way Mr. Miyagi would have, Johnny employs his “no mercy” technique and slaps it down. With a smile, it’s clear the beef between these two is just as squashed forever.

Josh Heald said of the scene, “At the end of the series, we wanted to leave the audience with the knowledge and the comfort of knowing that their relationship isn’t going to completely devolve three minutes after we fade out. We wanted to kind of drop in on any given afternoon and see a little slice of life of what it’s like for these two to be friends. Johnny is mainly still Johnny, except now he’s dealing with new problems. And Daniel is going to be there for him, and he’s gonna help him through it. It’s also an opportunity to leave Daniel with one more moment of reflection on his relationship with Mr. Miyagi and remind the audience that that’s gonna be okay also. It almost was us having a hard time saying goodbye but really wanting to kind of have one more big warm hug from these guys to the audience to just let that be the lasting memory, that things are good.”

As for the choice to incorporate the flycatching moment, where it all began, Schlossberg added, “The fly is one of those memorable moments from the original Karate Kid that people have been asking us about and have been waiting for, and it was something that we talked about, using it in in the best possible way, and it really felt at the end would be the perfect place for it. It’s that kind of encore moment of, ‘Hey, you know what? You waited this long, probably forgot about it right now, but it’s not just Dennis de Guzman and Darryl Vidal [as throwbacks], but this famous classic memory that we wanted to put in there and have fun with, both the sentimentality for Daniel and then the comedy of Johnny swatting the fly and ending on that kind of Cobra Kai no mercy.'”

Cobra Kai, Netflix