5 ‘Karate Kid’ Favorites ‘Cobra Kai’ Needs To Bring Back For Season 3

It’s official: YouTube has renewed Cobra Kai for Season 3!

The Karate Kid revival that’s sweeping (the leg of) the nation has garnered acclaim from both critics and fans alike as one of pop culture’s greatest rivalries, Daniel LaRusso vs. Johnny Lawrence, has been reignited on the small screen. If you have yet to experience this absorbing series, the first two episodes of Season 1 are currently available to watch without a YouTube Premium subscription, and both seasons will be available to stream for free later this year.

Anyone who watched the Cobra Kai Season 2 finale (spoilers ahead!) knew that Season 3 was a foregone conclusion. Not only did the latest batch of episodes end with the fate of the heart and soul of the series — Xolo Maridueña’s Miguel — hanging in the balance, but the final image of the season teased the return of Karate Kid fan favorite Ali Mills (Elizabeth Shue).

Who do we want to see in Cobra Kai Season 3 and beyond? Here are five returns that would be the best (around).

Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue)

Out of all the characters on this list, the return of Ali Mills Schwarber is the most likely. Not only has Ali been repeatedly mentioned throughout the series, but Season 2 concluded with the popular character responding to Johnny’s Facebook message with a friend request.

Personally, I don’t think the creative team would end the season with such an enticing plot point unless they knew they could pay it off in Season 3. While Cobra Kai co-creators Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald have been reticent to confirm Shue’s appearance, Macchio remarked that he “may be seeing her soon” in a recent Rotten Tomatoes oral history, and Shue herself told Decider that she’s “thinking about” a Cobra Kai appearance.

“I’m thinking about it, but I don’t know. I just don’t know,” the actress told us. “But I think they’ve done a great job. I’m very impressed with what they’ve done with it. I really am.”

Julie Pierce (Hilary Swank)

Multiple time Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank joining the cast of Cobra Kai for an entire season isn’t realistic, but the actress reprising her role as Julie Pierce from 1994’s The Next Karate Kid for a cameo appearance? That’s plausible. Not only would it be an organic way for Daniel to possibly learn some new information about Mr. Miyagi, but in the Cobra Kai universe, Daniel and Julie are familiar with one another.

During a May 2018 interview with Slash Film, the aforementioned Cobra Kai creative trio were asked if Julie and Daniel met at Mr. Miyagi’s funeral. Not only was this an A+ question, but it also further explained where Cobra Kai sits in the Karate Kid canon.

“In our minds, those two characters do know each other,” Hurwitz said. “They were both very important to Mr. Miyagi. We have not yet reached out to Hilary Swank but we do think about her as somebody who is part of the Karate Kid canon and who could exist in the world of Cobra Kai.

Heald added, “We treat the first four Karate Kids as canon to this universe. They all have Miyagi in them as a throughline.”

By this definition, the 2010 version of The Karate Kid starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan is not a part of the Cobra Kai canon.

Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith)

Say what you will about renowned lunatic Terry Silver, but the guy’s a good friend.

In the much-maligned Karate Kid 3, Silver, an old army buddy of John Kreese, decides to press pause on his nefarious toxic-waste disposal business to help his downtrodden pal extract revenge on a regional youth karate champion and his elderly best friend. Karate Kid 3 is not a good film, but Thomas Ian Griffith’s Terry Silver is deliciously cartoony in his abject villainy.

I honestly love Thomas Ian Griffith’s over-the-top portrayal of Silver, and the fact that his absolutely insane, needlessly intricate scheme to outsmart an almost 30-year-old teen Daniel LaRusso actually worked is the textbook definition of a chef’s kiss. We don’t need a season of Silver, just an episode. Oh, and unrelated, can we also have Kari Kimmel perform an acoustic version of “You’re the Best Around”?

Fun fact: According to IMDB trivia, Griffith is four months younger than Ralph Macchio.

Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan)

Two Karate Kid 3 characters? Am I crazy? You bet. Crazy like a karate-loving fox. Even though Karate Kid 3 is… very weird… there’s a lot of story to mine from this mess. Season 2 of Cobra Kai acknowledged Karate Kid 3, as Daniel explained to his students that he once wore the insignia of the cobra. Is a return from “Karate’s Bad Boy” Mike Barnes (aka the Tournament Terror) really that far-fetched?

Somehow portrayed by Sean Kanan and not Simon Rex (they look very similar), Barnes is a scary dude who basically beat the Bonsai out of Daniel for the entire film. If Kanan’s Twitter presence is any indication, he’s down to break out the karate gi for round two. Also, it should be noted that Kanan almost died filming Karate Kid 3.

“I was doing my own stunts and ended up bleeding internally for days before doctors discovered it,” the actor said in an interview with Soaps.com. “I was forced to have surgery on Christmas Day, it couldn’t be put off or I might have died. The studio gave me four days to get back on set!”

Chozen (Yuji Okumoto)

John Kreese may preach the gospel of Cobra Kai, but this crazy son of a bitch lives the lifestyle, baby. At the end of Karate Kid 2, Daniel asks Chozen a simple question: “Live or die, man?” Chozen, a certified sociopath, defiantly answers “die.” He chooses death via karate chop over being dishonored. Love him or hate him, that’s pretty badass. LaRusso ignores his request and in a callback to the beginning of the film, honks Chozen’s nose.

Study question: Do you think Chozen, a man who’d rather die than lose a street fight to a punk kid from Reseda, was steamed at Daniel for disrespecting him in front of his entire village?

Study answer: Yes

Chozen seems like the type of dude who’d hold a grudge, which makes him the perfect antagonist for a future season of Cobra Kai.

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