‘Cobra Kai’ showrunners break down Johnny Lawrence’s ‘second chance at life’ in the series finale and the alternate ending you didn’t see

Cobra Kai's trio of showrunners, producers, writers, and directors, Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg, have been thinking about their series finale for years. "Even before we wrote the first episode, we had a sense of certain things that were important to us," they tell Gold Derby. "We knew that we wanted to end our series with Johnny Lawrence having a second chance at life."

Cobra Kai delivered its final karate chop on Feb. 13 on Netflix, and fans are still coping with having to say farewell to their favorite characters, including "frenemies" Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka). In this exclusive port-mortem Q&A with Gold Derby, Heald, Hurwitz, and Schlossberg open up about crafting a series finale, the alternate ending you didn't see on TV, and the show's upcoming Emmy chances.

Gold Derby: What was step one when you were about to put pen to paper for the series finale?

Jon Hurwitz: When we started Cobra Kai, from the very beginning, even before we wrote the first episode, we had a sense of certain things that were important to us if we did get to make this finale years later. When we met Johnny Lawrence at the beginning of our series, he was a loser in life, someone who was depressed and withdrawn from society, and he'd had this big defeat from 1984 [in The Karate Kid], and the abuse from his sensei, and that relationship with Daniel Russo was something that was a thorn in his side. And so we knew that we wanted to end our series with Johnny Lawrence having a second chance at life and a second chance to get on the mat. Our goal was to make this finale something that worked as not only an end of the story from our series, but also the end of the story of the Johnny-Daniel-Kreese [Martin Kove] relationships from 1984.

Josh Heald: We obviously put a lot of pressure on ourselves to not screw it up, and to deliver upon the audience's expectations. You also need to subvert those expectations. You also need to have fun and be capricious and have some things that just feel like you're in an episode of Cobra Kai, without the weight of that responsibility bleeding through. We want the audience to get on that ride and just feel like they're on their favorite ride, and it's doing a couple more loops before it comes in for that safe landing.

Hayden Schlossberg: When you're actually at that stage where you're in a final season, and you're writing that final episode, you're thinking about all these shows in the past. There have been some amazing shows that have been well-loved, but people always talk about that they ended poorly or controversially, and our goal was not to have a controversial end. This was a crowd-pleasing franchise, and we did everything we could to have a uplifting, fun, rewarding conclusion.

SEE Ralph Macchio and William Zabka on the end of 'Cobra Kai'

During the writing process, did you look back at how other popular shows had ended to get inspiration for what to do — or not do?

Hurwitz: I don't think we did that at all. This whole time we've just written and made what we would want to see as fans, and that was sort of the north star this whole time. It was never like, "What does the audience think?" We're the audience, you know? We're fans of this show. We were fans of the Karate Kid franchise before we made the show. So this whole series has been us just taking the characters that we loved, and adding characters to that universe, and putting out there what we would want to see. It never thinking, "OK, well, these shows did this kind of ending." We wanted it to be fist-pumping. We wanted it to be emotional. We wanted it to have some surprises. And we wanted to leave everybody with a big smile on their face.

The pilot episode was titled "Ace Degenerate" and the series finale was "Ex-Degenerate." Did you always have that full-circle idea in mind?

Heald: I think that was our second easiest title to land on for the franchise. "Ace Degenerate" and "Ex-Degenerate" stem from a line that was said in Johnny Lawrence's introduction in The Karate Kid, when he's a ne'er-do-well. He had one year left of high school, one year to make it all work, and then Daniel gets in the middle of his plans and everything falls apart. So at the top of Cobra Kai, Johnny is the ace degenerate again and he's let his life slip into this horrible state where he's withdrawn and disconnected. By the end, he's gotten over some things and he has truly, finally arrived at that ex-degenerate place that he hoped to be at back in 1984.

The finale opens with Johnny Lawrence at his mother's grave, setting an emotional tone right off the bat. What made you choose that as the first scene?

Schlossberg: It all stemmed from reminding the audience where Johnny started and how far we've come, because by the time you're watching the last couple of episodes of Cobra Kai, he's gone on this journey. He's made amends with his rival. He's made amends with his abusive father. He's been able to take back the family business. He has a good relationship with his son. He's come so far. We wanted to remind the audience of exactly where he started, that it really was that tournament in 1984 that sent him on a downward spiral. The opening scene reminds us of the past, but it also sets up the stakes of the episode, which is, if he loses this match, will that send him on a downward spiral yet again?

In the montage at the end, we see the last moments of all of these beloved characters. How easy or hard was it to come up with some of those scenes?

Hurwitz: That was a challenge. The thing was, you have a bunch of karate students, and they can't all have the same ending. So luckily, we've defined the characters as individuals throughout the series, and they had their defined relationships. We knew we wanted everybody to have a happy ending that felt like an ending of their high school journeys, especially for the kid characters, but that felt like a new beginning for them as well. And, who knows, maybe we'll pick up with some of these characters again in the future. But it makes the audience feel like they're all going to be OK in some way.

The last scene ever is Daniel with the chopsticks and the fly, intercut with flashbacks to Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita). And then Johnny comes over and squashes the fly. What can you tell us about that final scene?

Heald: Knowing that we're not going to end on a cliffhanger, it felt nice to pop in on any other given day of their lives. And it's going to be OK. Johnny's still Johnny, and Daniel's still Daniel, and they are coexisting, and it didn't all fall apart two seconds after we went to "End Snake." There was something sweet about that, and then hanging out there was the fly. It was that that big piece of The Karate Kid that we hadn't done an Easter egg with. We decided that this was a nice, earnest place for a fly to pop into this story, and for Daniel to remember that moment and bring his Miyagi story in for another happy landing, and to remind the audience that he really is at peace. And then, of course, to subvert it with Johnny's bull-in-the-china-shop approach was just the Cobra Kai twist on it.

We've heard rumblings about an alternate ending that was filmed with Martin Kove. Spill the tea!

Heald: Well, there's a couple of things that we toyed with, and one of them was the impression that maybe Kreese survived the events of Episode 14. That was something that we filmed — just a sliver of Martin Kove's hand as we're in the montage section of the finale at the newsstand. We see his hand pick up a magazine, and it was very recognizable as Kreese's hand. It was born out of a desire of Kreese doing this self-sacrificial thing, and we wanted to maybe have this reward for him. But it's preposterous that anybody could have survived that explosion.

You spent so much time and hard work and energy on this show, and the fan reaction has been incredible. What would it mean for the Emmy Awards to reward you and your team?

Schlossberg: For an actor like William Zapka, who was typecast for years, to come into this show and knock it out of the park and do some of the best acting that we've seen on any show, it's a good thing to recognize that kind of performance. The frustrating thing when it comes to awards, is that a lot of times there's just natural biases based on the platform of how the show is introduced to you, and it happened to us in our early days, when Cobra Kai was on YouTube Red, which is not the the typical platform for Emmy winners. Our music is on the level of John Williams, and we came to Zach Robinson and Leo Birenberg with a crazy challenge each season to turn it up a notch and to having a bigger, crazier orchestra.

Hurwitz: Not to mention our stunt team. There's not a half-hour comedy that has stunts at the level that we have, and the amount of fights that we have. It's just unparalleled, and they've been fortunate enough to be nominated before, but they've never had that victory. So our hope is that they have that. And just in general for the show, the sound team as well. I mean, we're on that stage. This is a complicated show.

All six seasons and 65 episodes of Cobra Kai are streaming now on Netflix. The show is a nine-time Emmy nominee for comedy series, sound editing, sound mixing, and stunts.

SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions