TV fans have been absolutely devouring Cobra Kai since it moved to Netflix last month. The Karate Kid sequel series went from YouTube to Netflix at the end of August and has been one of the most-watched titles on the entire streaming service every day since. With just 20 short episodes released on the service, many fans have already binged through both seasons of Cobra Kai, and were likely left gasping for air at the end of the shocking Season 2 finale.
In the final minutes of Cobra Kai Season 2, a massive high school brawl concludes with Robby kicking Miguel off of a balcony and onto a set of stairs a floor below, suffering a potentially life-threatening injury. During an interview with ComicBook.com (which you can watch in the video above), Cobra Kai star William Zabka talked about the reaction on set when the cast and crew learned about the events of the finale, and what lies in store for Season 3.
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“While we’re doing the show, we’re getting scripts on top of scripts. We had the first few as we start and they keep coming in and we’re turning the page as we’re doing it,” Zabka told us. And when [2×09] and [2×10] came in and especially [2×10], I think everybody showed up at the set the next day. And the whole makeup trailer was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I mean, the makeup artists, the stunt guys were like, ‘Are they for real, like, it’s really gonna go there?’ And then emotionally for me as the character to play that, I don’t want to give anything away, but everything Johnny was building, in a sense, the world crumbles. And that was a hard, hard thing to do and to play because it was also like the show is taking a turn. And where is it all going? It’s a very insecure feeling of that. Very painful. Really interesting. Especially the very ending and then, I don’t want to give anything away, but all of that played really real for all the actors.
“And, then at the end of Season 2, it was this big question mark. I came home from shooting that with a knot in my stomach and pit in my throat going, ‘There’d better be a Season 3 to work this out man, because I am like, sure enough, I’m destroyed right now.’ We hadn’t been renewed yet. I’m like, ‘If it ends here I’m in so much trouble. Like, I’m gonna need years of therapy to get over it.’
Fortunately, Cobra Kai was eventually renewed for Season 3, putting Zabka’s worries to rest. The third season, which will be released on Netflix in 2021, will deal with the fallout from Miguel’s injuries.
“We got the green light for Season 3, but we didn’t know what that was going to be yet until those scripts rolled in and then the guys pitched it to us,” Zabka continued. “So it does have a rebound but a great thing about the show is it’s really unpredictable. And the writing is really unpredictable. So it’s like, left, right, left, right. Bam — hit a wall, things blow up, and then it’s all back together and there’s comedy in it. It’s just so well-crafted. And it’s the three writers and their team of writers, they’re wicked and they’re fans, that’s the thing. They came at it as like, they say The Karate Kid was their Star Wars in a way. You know, it was like they were uber-fans of the franchise and then they’re just great writers and hearts of gold. And they understand all these characters in this world. They knew it when they pitched it to me. I mean, they told me about these characters Hawk and Miguel and those were foreigners to me. And I didn’t understand what that was. I understood what Johnny Lawrence was gonna be, which is going to be like ‘Bad Sensei.’ Like ‘Bad Santa,’ but ‘Bad Sensei.’ That’s how they pitched it to me. They just have a handle on this whole, whole world. It’s a good thing to feel.”
Have you been enjoying Cobra Kai on Netflix? Are you looking forward to Season 3? Let us know in the comments!
