Tensions Mount Following Heated All Valley Tournament in ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 5 Trailer
The All Valley Tournament at the conclusion of Cobra Kai’s fourth season culminated with broken noses, unexpected eliminations, brutal technique combinations, and referee bribes. Now, the lingering tensions are coming to a head in the newly-released season 5 trailer.
“This is what we’re up against. This is how everyone sees him: as some kind of philanthropist out to save the kids of the Valley,” Daniel LaRusso says in the preview, laying out the force of his competition with longtime villain Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith is reviving his role from the poorly received 1989 film The Karate Kid Part III).
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The Valley’s young generation of karate enthusiasts are working hard to rebuild themselves following the tournament, but Silver is scheming to dominate the field by establishing the Cobra Kai empire as the end-all-be-all of karate institutions – with an emphasis on the aggressive “No Mercy” technical approach.
While Daniel had joined forces with Johnny Lawrence last season, this time around his corner is less crowded. With his focus shifted towards taking down Silver, Johnny is looking to step away from karate all together to clean up the mess he created. Meanwhile, John Kreese is stuck behind bars, having been framed by Silver for aggravated assault.
Feeling lost and outnumbered, Daniel calls in an old friend for help. Though their identity is being kept under wraps until the season premieres, fans are speculating that Cobra Kai season 5 might see the return of another Karate Kid OG, building on the revived universe.
“We’ve said from the beginning of making Episode One, the buy-in for this show and this universe is that karate in the Valley is like football in Texas,” series co-creator Josh Heald told Rolling Stone last year. “When you look at it on paper, it looks more ridiculous than it does when you put it up on the screen, because everyone is coming to appreciate the big stakes of the tournament with the same gravity.”
He added: “For the kids, it feels like this is tied into their futures and their families and personal relationships and romantic relationships. For the adults, you feel the wounds of the past and it becomes about something more than karate. It becomes about Daniel’s relationship with Mr. Miyagi and Daniel’s regret not only [about] the past, but for bringing Cobra Kia back into the Valley at all. Even though it’s about karate, it becomes about these other things.”
Season 5 of Cobra Kai hits Netflix on Sept. 9.
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