Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Cobra Kai season 6 part 3!Cobra Kai may have reached its triumphant conclusion, but one of the show’s creators has revealed that they almost had a very different fate in mind for a key character. With the decision to split the final season into three parts, season 6 part 3 of The Karate Kid sequel show recently made its debut on Netflix on February 13. During the final moments of the show’s penultimate episode, “Strike Last”, Martin Kove’s John Kreese confronted the villainous Terry Silver aboard his luxury yacht, which would ultimately turn fatal as both characters were seemingly killed in a fiery explosion.
However, Cobra Kai co-creator Jon Hurwitz has recently taken to X to explain that the show’s finale almost hinted at Kreese’s continued survival. Sharing a photo of a prop magazine that referred to the mysterious disappearance of Terry Silver, Hurwitz explained that the finale’s montage sequence was originally intended to contain a shot of the magazine. Furthermore, they also intended to have Kove’s hand reach into the shot, implying that Kreese had survived the explosion. Check out his comments below:
You know the final beat of the “Sweet Child of Mine” montage that ends on the Sports Illustrated? Well, we had the camera drift further down the newsstand to find this other magazine showing that Terry Silver’s disappearance was still a mystery in the Valley.
We even took it a step further and had Martin Kove’s hand reach in to pick up the magazine, partly for the .000001% scenario we decided we wanted to imply that Kreese was still alive, but more so just to entertain ourselves since we always joke around about how Kreese likes to fake his own death. (Once we saw what the boat explosion looked like, that minuscule chance we’d use the footage completely disappeared. 😂)
With that said, Hurwitz also explained that he and his fellow showrunners opted to end the show on a triumphant note, instead of hinting at the possibility of future threats from either Kreese or Silver. Check out his final comments and the original post with a picture of the prop magazine below:
At the end of the day, we wanted our finale to end triumphantly and with credibility — not with an absurd confirmation that somehow John Kreese survived that fiery blast. We wanted Johnny, Daniel, and the rest of the characters on our show to be living in a world where there was no more danger of Silver or Kreese suddenly popping up and messing with their lives again. We wanted happily ever after… or at least happily until a spinoff where there are fresh problems to contend with instead of the same monsters that have wreaked havoc in the Miyagiverse for 40 years.
Yes, Cobra Kai Never Dies and no, we didn’t show the bodies, so I suppose there’s no proof that both men are dead. But for the here and now, let’s live in a world where there’s actual legitimate karate peacetime in the Valley, because that’s the story we intended and it feels so good!
What Kreese’s Survival Would Have Meant For The Cobra Kai Series Finale
It Was His Sacrifice That Proved His Redemption
Right from the show’s earliest episodes, Hurwitz and his fellow showrunners have repeatedly embraced redemption arcs for several of Cobra Kai‘s key characters. Not only is much of the show centered on the continued redemption of Johnny Lawrence and the reparation of his once fraught relationship with Daniel LaRusso, but several antagonistic relationships would all come to be healed throughout the show’s critically acclaimed run. Nowhere did this become more apparent than in season 6 part 3, and Kreese’s realization of the harm that he had repeatedly inflicted on his former student.
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What Happens To Cobra Kai’s 11 Main Characters At The End Of Season 6
Cobra Kai season 6 ends on a solid note by bringing a well-rounded closure to the stories of all its main characters while leaving no loose threads.
As one of the key recurring villains throughout the previous Cobra Kai seasons, the show’s penultimate episode proved that even some of the most unlikely characters could still atone for their past misdeeds. Given Kreese’s last-minute change of heart, many fans probably would have openly embraced his continued survival, no matter how unlikely. However, it was the sacrifice he made in giving his life to prevent Silver from sabotaging Johnny’s match and putting his family’s lives at risk that demonstrated that his motives were genuine, rather than simply another nefarious scheme he would later twist to his advantage.
Our Take On John Kreese & Terry Silver’s Continued Survival
Kreese Surviving Would Have Raised Other Questions
Had Hurwitz and his fellow showrunners decided to include the shot of Kreese reaching for the magazine, there potentially would have been other implications beyond his own survival. While Kreese has proven himself capable of faking his own death before, if he had escaped the blast, audiences would have naturally questioned whether Silver could have too. And, while Kreese may have made amends with Johnny Lawrence, it is unlikely that Silver would have been content to let Johnny’s Sekai Takai win go unchallenged.
Much as Hurwitz suggests, it was far more important for the Cobra Kai finale to end on the same kind of triumphant note that the show owes to the original Karate Kid movies from which it had sprung. While Kreese’s survival may not have necessarily undercut that, given his own last-minute redemption, the threat of Silver’s escape would have left threads unanswered and detracted from the show’s otherwise fitting conclusion.
Source: Jon Hurwitz/Twitter
Cobra Kai
8/10
- Release Date
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2018 – 2024
- Network
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Netflix, YouTube Premium
- Showrunner
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Jon Hurwitz
- Directors
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Hayden Schlossberg, Jon Hurwitz, Joel Novoa, Jennifer Celotta, Steven K. Tsuchida, Sherwin Shilati, Marielle Woods, Steve Pink, Lin Oeding, Michael Grossman
- Writers
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Josh Heald, Ashley Darnall, Chris Rafferty, Bill Posley