‘Cobra Kai’ Season 4: What We Know About the Netflix Series so Far

Season 3 of Cobra Kai released on Netflix on Friday, sparking excitement among viewers. Fans of The Karate Kid spinoff binged the entire season and reached the explosive finale. Now they have begun calling for more information about future episodes. They want to know what to expect from the fourth season and which major Karate Kid franchise characters will surface.

While the Cobra Kai showrunners are remaining tight-lipped about what will happen during Season 4 of the karate-centric series, certain details are available. Specifically, some characters will join the show, while others will likely return. Additionally, the creators have laid out a timeline for when the series will begin production and ultimately land on the streaming service.

Renewal

With the third season of Cobra Kai teasing big things in the future, the fans are hoping that it will return for another year. Netflix confirmed that this was going to happen by renewing the show in October. However, a new season was not guaranteed. The first two seasons had to first perform well after moving to the streaming service.

“When we moved to Netflix, they had us open up a writers room with us all expecting we’d be making a Season 4,” showrunner Jon Hurwitz tweeted. “That said, the show needed to perform well for us to officially get picked up.” Cobra Kai immediately found a new audience after moving to Netflix and prompted the renewal.

Production Status

With Season 3 already surfacing on Netflix, viewers are now wondering when Season 4 will air. The show is currently in pre-production but has not started filming just yet. The expectation is that the cast and crew will start the process in January 2021 with an expected wrap date sometime in April 2021. Hurwitz revealed in late October that the scripts would be all ready to go for the start of filming.

Returning Characters

One of the more exciting moments for Cobra Kai fans came in the form of Ali (Elisabeth Shue) finally debuting. She appeared in two episodes and spent time with both of her former love interests in Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence. It’s unclear if Ali will officially return for another arc in Season 4, but fans expect her to return to the series due to some tender moments late in Season 3. 

Season 3 also saw the return of Kumiko (Tamlyn Tomita) and Chozen (Yuji Okumoto) from The Karate Kid Part II, but it is unclear whether either character will be in Season 4, which would perhaps see them then crossing the pond to visit Daniel in the United States.

New Cast Additions

The explosive finale of Season 3 made fans believe that Terry Silver, the villain from Karate Kid III, will make his appearance in Season 4. Hurwitz did not officially confirm this cast addition but did spark excitement with teasing comments. However, Silver is not the only potential addition to the roster. Hurwitz also explained that Hillary Swank’s character, Julie Pierce, is also a possibility.

“In our writers’ room we speak about literally every character that has appeared in the Miyagi-verse, so it’s obvious that we’ve spoken about Julie Pierce,” he said to Cinema Blend. “As to whether or not she’ll return to the series, that’s something you’ll just have to wait to find out.” He also shied away from revealing whether the creators had reached out to Swank.

Air Date

When will Season 4 of Cobra Kai hit Netflix? This was a prominent question on social media after viewers binged the entire season in a small amount of time. They expressed a desire to learn the answers to some of the biggest questions and said that they didn’t want to wait for a long time. The showrunners don’t have an exact date just yet, but Hurwitz said that fans can expect the new season roughly a year after Season 3. This timeline would place the date around Jan. 1, 2022.

Storyline

There are several big moments expected for Season 4 when it does ultimately hit Netflix. Silver could team up with John Kreese to fight Lawrence and LaRusso, but the fans don’t know for certain if this will occur. What they do know is that the upcoming 51st All-Valley Karate Tournament should play a role. The two former rivals teamed up at the end of Season 3 to take on Kreese’s Cobra Kai dojo, setting up an epic battle in the future.

Season 5

While many fans are focusing on Season 4 and whether Terry Silver will join the series, others are looking even further into the future. They want to know if Cobra Kai will have a fifth season. These fans want the series to keep moving forward and adding more and more characters from the Karate Kid films. Hurwitz doesn’t know if there will be a fifth season, but he has a road map laid out for where the story could go.

“We have plans beyond that. We haven’t had firm discussions with Netflix as to when the series will end but we have expressed that if on their end there is a period of time where they’re like ‘It’s about enough of this Cobra Kai business,’ to give us a heads up so that we can wrap things up appropriately,” he told Cinema Blend. “I think we’re going to have the right amount of runway to get it done in a way that’s going to be fulfilling for fans and leave the characters in a place that’s a fulfilling close to the story with potential for more stories down the road.”