‘Cobra Kai’ Star Mary Mouser Teases Samantha Taking the ‘Reins Back’ in Season 4 (Exclusive)

Mary Mouser took on a big challenge when playing Samantha in Season 3 of Cobra Kai. After getting into a big fight with Tory (Peyton List) in the Season 2 finale, Samantha dealt with PTSD and nearly quit karate because of the trauma. PopCulture.com recently caught up with Mouser who teased what’s next for Samantha in Season 4, which premieres on Netflix this Friday.

“I think what I’m most excited for with Samantha, and I hope other people will love, is that coming off of the end of Season 3 she struggled with her battle with coming to terms with her trauma and learning to live with it, and learning to adapt to having PTSD and learning to have that be a part of her, but not having it stop her from pursuing all the different things that she loves,” Mouser told PopCulture. “I’m really excited for people to see how that influences her, how she tries to take the reins back, and see what happens with that.”

Samantha and Tory get into another big fight at the end of Season 3, and while Samantha was still dealing with a lot of fear, she was able to go toe-to-toe with Tory, which now leads to a very interesting path for both in Season 4. Fans are curious if Samantha and Tory will meet in the All Valley Karate tournament, but another question that has to be asked is will the two ever get along?

“If I were a viewer, I would really want to see that, die to see it. But [for] me, as an actor, Tory and I just have so much fun with our little rivalry that we can’t imagine a world in which we would,” Mouser said. “But at the same time maybe I would like that for Samantha’s character development, and would hope that she could handle that and could gracefully tackle coming to terms with her boogeyman man being a more multidimensional human who also has a story that needs to be heard.”

With the tournament coming up, Samantha is training with her father, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and his former rival Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) as Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang dojos have joined forces to take down Cobra Kai. And while this is something fans have wanted, Samantha is not sure how long this partnership will last. 

“I think it’s going to be really fun for people to see the dynamic, because I think we’ve gotten to see bits and pieces of it,” Mouser revealed. “They have these little come together moments and then the big split apart, throughout the season so far. I’m really excited for people to see how they actually interact with one another when they’re actively trying to be on the same team. It definitely created a lot of really fun environments for us to work in, that’s for sure.”