Warning: MAJOR spoilers from Cobra Kai season 6, part 3.All good things must eventually come to an end, and the final season of Cobra Kai season 6, part 2, fans were left wondering how the final five episodes would tie the series up, especially after the major death of Kwon in the midst of the Sekai Taikai. Picking up several weeks after his ing, the Cobra Kai characters are all dealing with the fallout in their own ways, before eventually getting the opportunity to resume the tournament, but the road there wasn't an easy one.

Ahead of the Cobra Kai season 6, part 3 release, ScreenRant caught up with showrunners Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald, and Hayden Schlossberg for a full post-mortem interview about the final five episodes and the amount of work that went into getting to their big finale. Throughout the interview, the Cobra Kai showrunners trio discuss the exploration of trauma across the various characters, the big payoff moments for Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, as well as the deadly encounter between Terry Silver and John Kreese. In addition to that, for fans hoping to get more of the Cobra Kai franchise on Netflix, the Cobra Kai bosses share their most optimistic update yet.

Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald & Hayden Schlossberg On The Ending To Cobra Kai

"Our initial first version of a scene for 6x11 was SportsCenter basically..."

ScreenRant: Let's start with the beginning of part 3. Were there different versions of how we were initially going to come back to the story after Kwon died, or what was the decision to do a little time jump?

Jon Hurwitz: There was always a plan to do a time jump. We thought something very dramatic happened at the end of episode 10, obviously with Kwon's death at the Sekai Taikai, and we wanted to let the dust settle and then pick up in the aftermath. Our initial first version of a scene for 6x11 was SportsCenter basically, and it was going to be a Sportscenter-type thing, talking about the Sekai Taikai and the state of the world that this incident that occurred at this world karate tournament had gone viral and people all over the world were very aware of it now.

You get that sense already in that episode and certainly by 6x13, but we always wanted to pick up and see where our characters were a few weeks later with Daniel looking to put karate in his past and move on from it.'This tragic thing happened. I shouldn't have even been there in the first place. This was probably all a mistake.' To Johnny, who's thinking, 'This was our big shot. It was not only a big shot for me, but for Robbie and for Miguel and for all the kids,' and just the frustration that, yes, a tragic thing happened, but it happened in a way that was not a natural karate fight.

A foreign object ended up on the mat, and a bad set of circumstances happened, and then it escalated from there. So that was Johnny's attitude about it, but [for] each person we wanted to see how they felt in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Cobra Kai Offered An Unexpected Reunion Between Mr. Miyagi & Daniel LaRusso

"Daniel has earned this dream... through the franchise up to this point."

With a title like "Skeleton," I should have seen that whole thing coming of paying homage to the films again. Can you talk about constructing that? Because it was dealing very much with Daniel's trauma of everything he's been going through this season. Can you talk about what was the trickiest aspect of bringing that whole dream sequence to life and getting him through these dark times that he's been going through this season?

Josh Heald: Daniel has earned this dream - not only through this season but through the franchise up to this point, especially beginning with season 1 of Cobra Kai. We are dealing with a Daniel who has never stopped mourning Mr. Miyagi. His loss is always coming to the forefront as Daniel's dealing with history repeating itself, certainly in the early days with Cobra Kai, but even in the later seasons, as his children are dealing with things that he himself maybe never went through, you're craving that wisdom that's not there in real time anymore.

Up until season 6, he's been able to reach into the past and pull out a nugget, and rest upon the idea that Mr. Miyagi always had the answers. This season, Daniel's confronting the idea for the first time that Mr. Miyagi is a human being who's fallible and has mistakes and skeletons in his closet, some of which he'll never have a perfect complex explanation for.

We see that, at its most haunting, in the middle-five episodes when he has a nightmare about fighting Mr. Miyagi. This is the B-side to that. This is bringing that storyline to its ultimate resolution as he has, what starts as a nightmare, but then the ultimate dream, which is Daniel and Mr. Miyagi fighting side-by-side to destroy all his enemies and leave it all in the past.

That was something we discussed with Ralph [Macchio] before the season, on his wishlist, as we're going into the conclusion. He really was craving how amazing it would be to share screen time with Pat [Morita] again. Obviously, that's not possible, but deep-fakes, AI, VFX, and CGI are making it more possible to present that fantasy. We felt comfortable about putting Pat and Ralph on screen together because both scenes are presented as a dream and in a dream, your mind can take you to fantastical places.

We thought, 'What better than this dream than for Mr. Miyagi to be able to impart one more piece of wisdom to Daniel that can help him finally push through that final door?' But to do that, it requires a village. We needed an actor to stand in for Pat Morita on sets, and that was our fight choreographer and designer, Don Lee. Then we needed every bit of post-production assistance you can imagine [to] work on the appearance, and a lot of note-giving.

I can assure you it's not the first, second, or 20th draft. You're seeing the amount of months and months and months of work to get to this point where we felt like this is reflective of a dream. What we set out to do within the confines of this show, we hope it's landing with audiences the way that we felt when putting it together.

Is This The End Of John Kreese & Terry Silver?

"We wanted to bring the stakes back to a personal level."

One of the biggest conclusions to these final episodes was episode 14. Was this always going to be Kreese and Silver's end, or are they not actually dead? With these two, anything's possible. What's the backstory behind ending their story this way?

Hayden Schlossberg: Well, the audience can interpret it however they want to interpret it. You're right, we don't see the dead bodies. At the same time, it's a pretty big explosion. That being said, you could get blown back in an explosion, and maybe the shock of that to Terry Silver's system actually cured him of his disease, and he's stronger than ever! Who knows? Or he's just completely blown to bits. The audience can take that to wherever they want to take it.

I'll just say, knowing that we wanted Kreese and Silver to have this big cinematic moment where they fight and Kreese sacrifices himself? Whether they're dead or not, he was ready to die, clearly, by throwing his cigar into the gasoline right near those tanks. So, we wanted Kreese to have that sacrifice. We wanted this big moment to happen where you're not worried about these two big bads at the end of our series that they're going to come back and do something horrible to Daniel or Johnny.

We wanted to bring the stakes back to a personal level where it wasn't the big bad of the show that you're nervous about. It's the internal struggle that Johnny's gone through and feeling like a winner at the end of the series. That being said, as we played that out, I tried my best to warn Terry Silver. I went back, I jumped into the story as his lawyer, and tried to get him off of this path. Even bringing up the yacht in episode 9, believe me, I wanted him to regroup and do his own thing, knowing what his fate would ultimately be, but I couldn't really say anything there. It was frustrating, but that's really me, as Terry Silver's lawyer in episode 9, trying to get him to stop this, knowing that he's going to die or seemingly die at the end of the season.

Josh Heald: There was so much gore with the bodies after that explosion that we couldn't get it past the Netflix standards and hold onto our TV-14 rating. So we made the creative decision not to show the bodies, but just to show the definitive explosion that clearly killed everybody on board. It's not just them. Dennis died there's a whole staff under there that we don't know if Kreese killed them before he went after Dennis. It takes a lot to run a ship like that.

Johnny Lawrence Gets His Happy Ending In Cobra Kai Season 6

"Perhaps there's more Johnny Lawrence stories to tell going forward..."

We see Johnny getting his ultimate happy ending. He gets to be the winner with a true redemption story. Would you say that this is the closing of the book for Johnny at this point, or how do you foresee this?

Jon Hurwitz: It's the closing of that 1984 story is, I think, what we would say. He ended in 1984; he had this rivalry with Daniel. He lost in this big crane-kick moment, and then in the aftermath, his sensei abandoned him and abused him in this situation. The end of Cobra Kai is Johnny not only redeeming himself as a winner, but dealing with the pain that he had from that moment that he had in high school. Johnny Lawrence will live on from here. Perhaps there's more Johnny Lawrence stories to tell going forward, but in of that trauma that he had at the hands of Kreese and losing that big fight, he's finally come out the other side in this Cobra Kai story.

Jon Hurwitz & Josh Heald Enter The Cobra Kai Universe

"So we figured why not add our brain power to that discussion?"

Josh and Jon, you guys finally get to show up too in this final season, apparently pitching some Back to the Future continuation? What was it like finally getting to make your onscreen debuts?

Josh Heald: It was fun. Everything we've read over the years indicates that Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale are very open to new writers coming in and pulling out the threads of their carefully constructed franchise. So we figured why not add our brain power to that discussion?

Jon and I just enjoyed the ability, for one afternoon, to play Cobra Kai Fantasy Camp and put on somebody else's pants and shoes, even though they were very much like ours, and play this very difficult stretch of two characters discussing a meta-spinoff of a classic '80s franchise. It was just the right place and the right time for two other friends at this restaurant to be having a discussion going about their day with what's important to them right before we shift focus back to Johnny and Daniel, who we want to spend one more moment with.

The Future Of The Cobra Kai Franchise On Netflix

"I would say we're optimistic. That's what I would say."

I know you guys are talking with Netflix, but are chances good that before 2025 is over, we may have some updates about where this franchise may go next?

Hayden Schlossberg: Well, I'll say there is a chance. I think we feel hesitant to bring up that percentage chance only because this is just an industry where a million different things can happen. I'll just say that our hope is that something is announced. We are working on things. We've been working on things since seasons 2-3, thinking about potential spinoffs. That, we've haven't kept a secret - in of is it very likely or very unlikely? There is a chance that before the end of this year, there is an announcement because it has been something that Jon, Josh, and I have worked on and want, but [we are] just hesitant to put a number on that, because all of a sudden, there can be a strike or COVID...This Cobra Kai journey had both of those things, and there's a million external factors that play into whether or not you're going forward with the show.

Jon Hurwitz: I would say we're optimistic. That's what I would say.

About Cobra Kai Season 6, Part 3

After a shocking result in the Sekai Taikai, Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai must reckon with their pasts while facing an uncertain future both on and off the mat. Almost 40 years after the events of the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament, it’s all been leading to this.

Stay tuned for ScreenRant's other Cobra Kai season 6 part 3 interviews, including:

• Mary Mo, Xolo Maridueña, Gianni DeCenzo, Jacob Bertrand & Tanner Buchanan
• Patrick Lewis
• Ralph Macchio

Cobra Kai season 6, part 3, is now streaming on Netflix, along with all the previous seasons.

Source: ScreenRant Plus