'Cobra Kai' Season 3 Ending Explained: Why did Kreese call his soldier friend? Here's what to expect from Season 4
Spoilers for ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 3
The whole of this season of ‘Cobra Kai’, while thoroughly enjoyable, has been a bit of a goat rope. With members of different dojos changing allegiances over and over, things can get confusing. But at the end of Season 3 of the Netflix martial arts comedy-drama series based on ‘The Karate Kid’ film series, there are a few questions that remain unanswered. Earlier this year in October, ‘Cobra Kai’ was renewed for a fourth season. So, we know that these questions will be answered. But before getting there, let’s take a look at what happened this season:
It began in the aftermath of Season 2. Johnny (William Zabka) is a mess after getting ousted from his own Cobra Kai dojo by Kreese (Martin Kove), his former sensei in the films — when he was a teenager. Things were not helped by the fact that in the brawl that broke out in the school, his own son Robby (Tanner Buchanan) near-fatally injured Miguel (Xolo Maridueña). But luckily, there was someone out there to help him — his old rival Daniel (Ralph Macchio).
The season saw Robby get alienated from Daniel, a father figure, and further get estranged from his own father Johnny. The result of his injuring Miguel and subsequently absconding led him to serve some time in a juvenile detention center, where he was brutally bullied and assaulted by other inmates. While this continued, Johnny attempted to balance his guilt towards not being there for his son, and the fact that his own student was almost killed by Robby. He helped Miguel learn how to walk again, and subsequently, trained him in karate from scratch.
Meanwhile, Kreese began poisoning the minds of Robby, Hawk (Jacob Bertrand), and Tory (Peyton List), in his revamped Cobra Kai dojo, where things went back to the old way — ruthless, cold, and extremely aggressive. As Johnny and Daniel both attempted to fix their lives in their separate dojos, their students began to get attacked by the Cobra Kai kids, ultimately ending in another brawl, but this time at Daniel’s home where Tory almost killed Samantha (Mary Mouser). And even though Hawk changed sides, realizing just how needlessly violent this sensei had made all of them, Tory and the others managed to inflict enough damage on all, be it Miguel or Demetri (Gianni Decenzo) or Mitch (Aedin Mincks) or any of the others.
Johnny then went over to the dojo to confront Kreese once and for all. But in the process, he injured his own son, who was now a student of Kreese. And even as Kreese came close to killing Johnny, Daniel came to his rescue. In the end, we saw Daniel and Johnny combine their dojos to battle Cobra Kai and get rid of Kreese.
So, what can we look forward to in Season 4?
First of all, the biggest thing to look forward to is the "All Valley Karate Tournament" where Daniel and Johnny’s students will fight against Kreese’s band of warriors from Cobra Kai. Obviously, this is something that the 4th season will end at. And given that ‘The Karate Kid’ has always seen good underdogs win against the evil bullies, the result is sort of predictable. That doesn’t mean it won’t be enjoyable to watch it anyhow. But, given how Season 3 turned out, one has to wonder if all of Daniel and Johnny's students will remain under their tutelage at that point.
One thing that we can be sure of is that Season 4 will see Robby and Johnny’s relationship more keenly than ever. For the former, Johnny has time and again been a failure as a father. Add to that, his fondness for Miguel (and that Johnny got into a relationship with Miguel’s mom), things are not going to be easy. And speaking of Robby, her relationship with Samantha is likely to deteriorate further given that she is with Miguel now. In all likelihood, we will see a budding romance between Robby and Tory, two teens who suffer from similar feelings of betrayal and marginalization.
But what will be interesting to see is how Kreese plans to behave in the upcoming season. We already know that he has some kind of a trick up his sleeve. At the end of Season 3, we saw him place a call to one of his fellow soldiers from the Vietnam war, a soldier who had pledged his indebtedness to him for a lifetime.
This soldier is none other than Terry Silver, played by Thomas Ian Griffith in 'The Karate Kid Part III'. He was, in the 80s, a wealthy businessman. And he was the one who founded the Cobra Kai dojo. While the film was panned, Silver's character proved to be a crafty villain. So, Season 4 will likely see Griffith reprise that role, bringing more trouble into the lives of Daniel and Johnny.
‘Cobra Kai’ Season 3 premiered on Friday, January 1, 2020 and is now streaming on Netflix.