Exclusive: Set Visit for Cobra Kai reveals what to expect in season 2!

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

It’s a cold October night in Fayetteville, Georgia at an amusement park which doubles as a fairgrounds in the Los Angeles valley. On a stage, the young actors portraying the members of the Cobra Kai dojo are putting on a daring martial arts display with William Zabka, who plays their leader, Johnny Lawrence. Production on the surprise hit series “Cobra Kai” (a TV sequel of sorts to the 1980s “Karate Kid” movies) is underway, and expectations are high for season 2.

The last season ended with (spoiler alert!) Johnny’s old sensei John Kreese (Martin Kove) from the original THE KARATE KID trilogy making a surprise appearance.

We sat down with members of the cast as well as show creators Hayden Schlossburg, Jon Hurwitz and John Heald to find out as much as we could about the new season, which was just made available on YouTube Premium.

“The fun for us was having a finale last year that left a lot of things open,” Hurwitz explained. “We didn't want to tie it all up in a nice bow. We wanted to do the kind of thing where audiences are dying to see what's next, and we had plans last season on where to take it this year.” Hurwitz promised that many of the fans’ burning questions will be answered early on in the season. "That first season put us in a place where we can tell the story that we had always envisioned,” said Heald.

"[Johnny] wins the All-Valley, but it comes at a loss and it comes with confusion for him, and uncertainty as to where his path forward is,” said Schlossburg. “For Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), by the end of the season, he's been dragged back into this karate rivalry, so much so that he feels that it's on him to bring back Miyagi-do Karate, and Mr. Miyagi's philosophies, and fight for the soul of the Valley.”

Hurwitz joked, “This is a town where conflicts get resolved only one way.”

“A crescent kick to the head!” Heald added.

Macchio said that he trusted the producers’ vision in season one, though he did chime in at times about things he thought the characters would or wouldn’t do. “They took arguably a very black and white franchise, ‘The Karate Kid,’ where it was good over evil. Miyagi good, Cobra Kai bad,” Macchio said. “And now you have a show where both characters are in midlife, and there's moral ambiguity.”

Macchio said that the addition of Kreese raises the stakes for Johnny and everyone. “There will be some nice surprises again, and Easter eggs here and there that will get the fanbase all abuzz,” he said.

As for Kreese himself, Kove said he was very interested in revisiting the character in this way. "You wouldn't expect this monster from the movies to have as much depth as he has here, which is what made me interested in doing it,” he said.

Kove wouldn’t give away too much, other than to say that the morally questionable Kreese will be a big part of the new season as he works his way back up to a position of power in the dojo. “The only thing that [Kreese] loves more than Johnny Lawrence is Cobra Kai,” he hinted. “You can take it from there to see how far he goes.”

Johnny is evolving “in spite of himself” is how Zabka put it. But Kreese’s presence has the potential to put a wrench in that.

“He's got a little bit of a gut check to do this season,” Zabka explained. “He's trying everything in his power not to be Kreese or his dad. He's trying to make some changes, but the stuff that he's teaching – there's a lot of good to it, he's helping these kids. But there's also a bit of old school head thumping that's not quite healthy. He's trying to find his own balance and figure out what his Cobra Kai's going to look like.”

Season 2 will also delve deeper into Johnny’s relationship with his estranged son Robby (Tanner Buchanan). “There will be some very clear explanations of what went on between them,” he said. As for Daniel’s daughter Samantha, actress Mary Mouser confirmed that she is going to be an official part of the revived Miyagi-Do Karate learning under her father this season. “Last year, I kept asking ‘Can I do karate? Can I do karate?’" she said. “And now with all the training hours that everyone puts in, I have to eat my words!”

Another of the younger characters on the show, Miguel (Xolo Maridueña), will be very conflicted between his membership in Cobra Kai and his feelings for Samantha, who dumped him last season for Robby, just before the All-Valley tournament. Maridueña also said that this season – which takes place over the summer after season 1- will not follow last season’s formula.

“We don't want to have a tournament at the end of every season,” he explained. “We want to mix it up and draw the audience in one direction, and right when they expect something to happen, totally flip it upside down.”

Of course, the big question for fans is the same question they had last season: When will Daniel and Johnny have a rematch, 35 years later?

“Everyone asks, ‘When are Daniel and Johnny gonna fight?’” said Macchio. “Hopefully when that happens and the show builds to that, it's just as important as anything else on the show.”

Cobra Kai Season 2 is now online via YouTube Red.