Franchise heroes William Zabka and Ralph Macchio may bridge the decades between the original Karate Kid trilogy and today’s generation, but audiences around the world know there is a cadre of talented young actors distinctly representing the Cobra Kai dynasty. As the Netflix series excitingly works its way through its victory lap of a final season, we’re able to see these young karate masters come into their own and become the leaders they were always destined to be.
The drama peaked at the end of Season 6, Part 1. The Miyagi-Do team arrives in Barcelona for the Sekai Taikai tournament, ready to face off against John Kreese (Martin Kove) and his surprising new team. After the team learns of Tory’s (Peyton List) mother’s passing, Tory abandons Miyagi-do, leaving Sam (Mary Mouser) with the leadership position as female captain. Having been defeated by Robby (Tanner Buchanan) for male captain, Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) is especially fired up, and the dissonant Hawk (Jacob Bertrand) and Demetri (Gianni DeCenzo) struggle to see eye-to-eye heading into the tournament.
Ahead of Season 6, Part 2’s debut on Netflix, Collider’s own Perri Nemiroff had the pleasure of talking with the young cast of Cobra Kai, Mouser, List, Maridueña, DeCenzo, Bertrand and Buchanan. Without spoiling anything, they discuss fighting styles, bitterness between the Binary Brothers, shifting responsibilities, and tease what fans can expect from their characters’ journeys in the coming episodes. Check it all out in the video above, or you can read the full interview transcript below.
“Imitation Is the Greatest Form of Flattery”
PERRI NEMIROFF: Peyton, Tory switches teams when she fights in the Sekai Taikai. Is her fighting style going to revert back to Cobra Kai, or is it going to be an amalgamation of what she’s learned?
PEYTON LIST: That’s a great question. It’s an amalgamation, for sure. It’s a combination of both Miyagi-do fighting. She’s been training with Sam leading up to this switch, so yeah, there are a lot of callbacks to Sam’s moves, and I wanted to implement some of those whenever I could.
Do you use them against her?
XOLO MARIDUEÑA: Hell yeah! [Laughs]
MARY MOUSER: But that’s the greatest form of flattery, isn’t it? Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Peyton and I talked about this a ton. She was so thoughtful and respectful about it. She was like, “Hey, that move that you do, I’m thinking about that one. I’m gonna ask if I can add it in.” I was like, “Go for it,” and she killed it. It was awesome.
A World Thrown Upside Down
Tanner, in our bullet points teasing Part 2, they mention that without Tory, Robby’s head isn’t in the game.
MARIDUEÑA: [Laughs] Damn!
How would you describe what is missing for him without her?
TANNER BUCHANAN: His world has been thrown way upside down. I think he’s really found a grounded life now with his dad and Daniel, and now his friends and what he sees as his brother, and his girlfriend, as well. I feel like everything was just so perfect for him for a while, finally, in his life that now that he’s lost one component, it’s just continued to break every single chain within his life, and he just doesn’t know how to handle that anymore because he wants it to be the way it was. So, he’s trying to figure out how to get back to that perfect life that he wants so badly.
That’s such an intense way to describe it. Now my heart hurts for him even more.
BUCHANAN: [Laughs] He’s just a boy!
Maybe Being Captain Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be
That leads me back to you, Mary. If Robby’s head isn’t in the game, how does Sam react in terms of her responsibilities of being a captain in the competition?
MOUSER: I feel like Sam is in a really precarious place there because she wants to be supportive of her friend, her teammate, and at the same time, there is anger, and there’s hurt toward Tory on her own side. So, Sam is off balance in that moment. Sam is hurt and shocked by this change, but she has to kind of bury that. She doesn’t have much of a choice because it’s that or feel like the team goes out of whack. Now, we have, obviously, other team members, but the importance and the significance of the captains is kind of crucial to the competition. I think, definitely, Sam feels the weight of the world, and the responsibility, whether she’s taken that on herself that she thinks she has to fix it all, but she’s definitely feeling that in that moment.
They’re just kids in a karate competition!
MOUSER: [Laughs] It’s about peace in the Valley! It’s so important.
Xolo, with Robby being kind of out of whack given the Tory situation, how does Miguel look at him as the one who’s not captain? Is it a situation where he treats him like a brother and tries to support him or thinks to himself, “Look what happened. I deserved to have the captain position to begin with?”
MARIDUEÑA: It’s totally a bit of both. I think you get to see all angles of it with Robby and Miguel. I think at the beginning it is a little bit bitter. You can’t help but feel like, “Darn, I didn’t win, and we’re not performing as well.” But at the same time, we know that all of us can rise to the occasion, and Robby was captain for a good reason. So, I think it’s helpful to have someone that close because you can have someone put you in check and be like, “Yo, maybe not everyone else is gonna tell you this because they don’t know you like I know you, but what’s up?” So, it’s always helpful to have someone like that around, and for both of these characters, you haven’t really had that before. So, I think it’s a special advantage going into Sekai Taikai.
Will Hawk and Demetri’s Falling Out Affect the Sekai Taikai?
Jacob, Hawk only goes to Barcelona because Tory switched teams. Does that mean he goes into the competition not fully confident he deserves to be there, or, deep down, does he know he is legitimately one of the best fighters they have?
JACOB BERTRAND: Going into it, I sort of think Hawk knows that he is one of the better fighters and deserves a spot to go. I think the thing that’s weighing on his chest more is the fact that he had this huge fight with Demetri. I think — this is in no shade to Demetri — Hawk believes he’s a better fighter than Demetri.
GIANNI DECENZO: I mean, that’s fair.
BERTRAND: How all that stuff went down was more a reflection of his miscommunication and mistake on being a good friend, and Demetri going is sort of a by-product of that.
DECENZO: I earned my spot!
BETRAND: You did. You did earn your spot. But yeah, I think him going right after Tory drops out at the start is like, “Damn, I’m just kind of messing up.”
Gianni, you earned your spot, but your little bullet point on our list is that Hawk feels like Demetri isn’t giving 100% and is more focused on his future at MIT. It was making me wonder, is he in Barcelona thrilled and proud of himself for earning that spot or is it more about him feeling good about taking a spot from Hawk because he’s mad at him?
DECENZO: Dude, I mean, my guy, Demetri, he’s going through it. I think that his focus is more on MIT and, “I’m gonna go do this. I’m gonna be a tech billionaire.” This karate stuff is a holiday for him. He’s just out there trying to be, like, the bad boy, trying to dance with girls. He’s just living his life, man. But I think that there’s definitely a darker side of, like, “Oh man, this guy that I had a huge falling out with is now rooming with me for the next couple of weeks. Oops.” So, they got stuff that they gotta work out, but we’ll see what happens.
Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 2 premieres on November 15 on Netflix. Check back with Collider for Perri’s Part 2 interview with show creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg.
