The cast of 'Cobra Kai,' including Xolo Maridueña, Mary Mouser, Tanner Buchanan, Peyton List, Jacob Bertrand and Gianni DeCenzo, as well as creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter's Tiffany Taylor ahead of the show's sixth and final season. The cast opened up about the incredible journey they've been on with the series, as well as reflected on growing up together and their tight friendships behind-the-scenes. Plus, the creators shared why they chose to split season six intro three parts. Part one of season six hits Netflix July 18.
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00:00You have this special bond that's ever gonna kind of go away, which I feel like a lot of
00:04other shows might talk about, but it's really strong and really true on this one.
00:09They're lying.
00:09Yeah, they're lying. We're telling the truth.
00:11Cobra Kai is coming to an end with season six. Ahead of the premiere of the final season,
00:16the cast and creators spoke to The Hollywood Reporter all about saying goodbye to the fan
00:21favorite show.
00:21I mean, you guys have been on such a journey with this show. It first premiered on YouTube Red
00:25in 2018. It made the transition to Netflix and then became this huge Netflix hit.
00:30When you look back on just your whole journey with the show, what comes to mind for you?
00:34Anytime anyone talks about the YouTube Red days and it going to Netflix,
00:38I think back of a conversation I had with Sholo driving to his house,
00:43where we were just sitting in the car going,
00:45Dude, wouldn't that be crazy if it went to Netflix?
00:47Ah, that'll never happen.
00:49Yeah, that's it.
00:50Now you can choose his face on your Netflix account.
00:54Yeah.
00:55I think Tanner and I had the same conversation at one point, just being like,
00:58Where do you think it would go? Well, I mean, there's, and we could hope, but Netflix,
01:03Netflix? No, don't even get, don't even get your hopes up. Like,
01:06but like, it's, I mean, it's crazy. It's thanks to the fans that we get to be here.
01:09There was a little bit of fairy dust sprinkled on this show from the beginning. You know, we,
01:13we pitched to YouTube Red, which would eventually become YouTube Premium,
01:17almost as a practice pitch because they were such a new emerging platform that we,
01:23we couldn't really imagine the show we had in our brains, uh, being on our laptops.
01:28Um, we, you know, we had Netflix pie in the sky ideas, but it ended up being
01:33a blessing because they leaned in fully to our creative and some of our untraditional storytelling
01:38to really, you know, create the template for what that show would become.
01:41At the time, even on YouTube, it felt really big. We made two seasons,
01:45we made three seasons with YouTube and you felt like you were doing something that like
01:48a huge amount of people all loved, but in our personal lives, most people didn't know it that
01:54well. It was one of those things where on online you saw big numbers and you saw a lot of comments,
01:58but you know, you know, the two of us are parents and it wasn't the kind of thing where like, you
02:02know, the other parents at the school all knew what it was. The moment it went on Netflix,
02:07everyone knew the show. Not only did like every parent who grew up loving the Karate Kid
02:11discover this new Netflix show that just showed up that we'd been working on for multiple years now,
02:17but their children had seen it too. So to see that rise and that sort of just change in our
02:22lives was really wonderful. The Sekai Taikai is the most prestigious karate tournament in
02:28modern martial arts history. For over a century, fighters from across the globe have gathered every
02:32two years to compete for the title of world's best. The cast also opened up about their
02:37friendships off camera and growing up on the show together. It feels like these are all our
02:42friends from middle school and high school and now we're going to different colleges,
02:47but it's pals that we'll have, that'll be at our weddings. Like these are people that are,
02:53I mean, if y'all get married, I don't know. I'd like,
02:57Shoma's like none for me. If y'all get married, I'll be there. I don't know if Tanner's ever
03:01going to find love. No, but, but yeah, it's like, these are, we're inseparable now. Like
03:08after you guys start punching each other and kicking and rolling around. Everyone just growing
03:13up with each other. I don't know. Yeah, it's true. It's like you have this special bond that's
03:16ever going to kind of go away, which I feel like a lot of other shows might talk about, but, but
03:22it's really strong and really true on this one. They're lying. Yeah, they're lying. We're telling
03:26the truth. The final season is set to premiere in three, five episode parts with part one,
03:31debuting July 18th, followed by part two on November 28th and the finale event coming
03:36sometime in 2025. Why did you decide to split up the final season into these three mini seasons,
03:42as you've called them? Once we realized we had more story to tell than a 10 episode season
03:48would give us, we talked with Sony and Netflix about doing more than that. We wanted to bring
03:52it in for a landing, but we needed more than one season and probably less than two seasons.
03:57So we ended up at this number, a nice round number of 15. But once we had that number,
04:01it ended up being perfect because we write every single season of the show in two,
04:06five episode story arcs. We always bring things to a head by episode five, you kind of round out
04:11one story and begin telling the aftermath of what that wrought. So that gave us the ability to kind
04:17of think of this in a three act structure, using each of those acts to tell a three act story
04:22within. So you end up with these kind of bombastic three parts of this final season that are all
04:28completely different and yet interconnected that have all the same feels that you'd expect from
04:33any other season of Cobra Kai with rises and falls and cliffhangers and tragedy and
04:37explosiveness. And it ended up being perfect that they agreed that the three episode drop
04:43fit within their desires as well. For more on Cobra Kai,
04:47head to THR.com. For The Hollywood Reporter News, I'm Tiffany Taylor.