The story of the dueling dojos won’t be ending at the upcoming All Valley Karate Tournament, given that Cobra Kai has landed an early renewal for Season 5 — months ahead of its Season 4 return, Netflix announced Friday.
Although Season 4 won’t premiere until sometime this December (watch the latest promo here), production on the Karate Kid follow-up series’ fifth season is set to begin in Atlanta this fall.
The early pick-up confirms there’s plenty more Cobra Kai to come, and as executive producer and co-showrunner Josh Heald told TVLine in January, wrapping the series up at the conclusion of the tournament was never the plan. “[The ending’s] well beyond that. In our minds, we have seasons’ worth of story that is necessary to tell before we get to that endgame.”
In the Season 3 finale of the karate dramedy (which recently received four Emmy nominations, including a nod for Outstanding Comedy), Johnny and Daniel joined forces as their respective dojos prepped to take on Johnny’s former mentor John Kreese and the usurped Cobra Kai. We also saw Kreese make a phone call to an old friend, leading many fans to speculate that the character of Terry Silver would make his long-awaited return to the franchise. (That speculation was confirmed in May with the announcement that Thomas Ian Griffith would indeed be returning to reprise his Karate Kid Part III role.)
In addition, Vanessa Rubio (who plays Miguel’s mom, Carmen) and Peyton List (Tory Nichols) were promoted to series regulars ahead of the fourth season.
TVLine’s Streaming Renewal Scorecard has been updated to reflect the news.
There’s so much more Cobra Kai to come! Where do you think the story will go after the tournament’s end? Drop your thoughts and theories in the Comments!
