🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐
Over the course of the first four kicking seasons of Cobra Kai, Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan) and Miguel Diaz’s (Xolo Maridueña) rivalry became one of the show’s most inescapable through lines. The two Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) protégés — the former, his biological son, and the latter, his unofficially adopted one — have never seen eye to eye; whether they’re competing as opposite ends of the show’s “love quad” or punching it out at school, things are always tense in the Lawrence/Diaz household. It’s a dynamic that Season 5 confronts head on, with fists raised.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Cobra Kai co-showrunner Jon Hurwitz tells Tudum. “These guys have a long history together, and their fight at the end of Season 2 was a big pivot point in the lives of both of these young men.” So when their rematch hits in the new season, it’s a momentous moment for both the series and its stars. With help from co-showrunners Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald and Hayden Schlossberg, we’ve annotated the original script of the confrontation.
The fight comes about in an unexpected way: encouraged instead of interrupted by Johnny Lawrence himself. “We love the idea of Johnny trying all the first half of the season to build that bridge between the two of them and nothing is working,” Hurwitz says. In true Cobra Kai fashion, the solution presents itself as part of another long-stewing rivalry, the one between Johnny and original Karate Kid himself, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio). Earlier in the episode, Daniel reminisces on the pair’s lengthy history, musing that maybe things would’ve been different if they’d just had it out to begin with. Cue light bulb.
“That’s my favorite thing about this fight,” Schlossberg says. “Johnny really wants these two guys to come together, but he’s convinced himself that unless they go full force at each other and punch each other in the face as hard as possible, they’ll never be friends.” It’s a counterintuitive solution to a problem that’s burning a hole in Johnny’s growing family, but things are not destined to go his way. In encouraging the pair to really trade blows, he invites a true brawl to begin — outside of his supervision, as Robby and Miguel head up a set of stairs to the second floor of the trio’s apartment complex.
If this were real life, the fight would’ve had to stop there. “We’ve never made it possible to get upstairs,” Hurwitz says. “In fact, there’s no staircase. It just looks like there’s a staircase.” So the production came up with the simplest possible solution: Robby and Miguel smash through the door to the stairs, and then a few moments later, thanks to some editing magic, crash through the door to the second floor.
The fix served a dual purpose, both practical and character-based. “We found that if Johnny’s upstairs with them, he’d be able to break up the fight and there wasn’t a lot of real estate for them,” Hurwitz continues. So Johnny was left below, struggling with a door handle for just long enough to allow for a risky epiphany.
Fans of Cobra Kai will note that this isn’t the first time Robby and Miguel have had an epic throw-down near a balcony ledge. Back in the Season 2 finale, Robby kicked Miguel over a school staircase, leading to his temporary paralysis. The showrunners underline this parallel with a few well-timed flashbacks. “It was in the writers’ room that they talked about, ‘Hey, what if it ends up upstairs [with] a balcony and harkens back to the school fight?’ It was a fun parallel to play,” Schlossberg says.
Of course, this fight has a substantially happier ending. “It was fun to look at that Season 2 finale from another level and re-create those feelings,” Heald says. “And to have the right kind of conversation in the aftermath instead of the wrong result, which is what happened at the end of Season 2.” While Johnny assumes that allowing Robby and Miguel to throw punches would be what finally allows them to bury the hatchet, the true turning point in the scene is Miguel’s choice not to throw his final punch.
It’s a moment that reflects just how far these crazy kids have come, and points to a hopeful future — if they can maintain their fragile peace. After all, they’re both going to have to be big brothers to Johnny’s new kid. “I think that there’s only so many times that you can be mad at each other in the same kind of way,” Hurwitz says. As for what’s next? “It sets those characters up to be in each other’s worlds a lot going forward,” Hurwitz continues. “And we’ll see if it’s smooth sailing from here on out.”
