‘Cobra Kai’ Season 5: The Coolest ‘Karate Kid’ Easter Eggs
The following post contains SPOILERS for Cobra Kai Season 5, along with some of the previous seasons and the original three Karate Kid movies. If you clicked on this article about Easter eggs in Cobra Kai without having seen the 40-year-old original Karate Kid movie please stop reading, and then spend a few minutes thinking about the choices that brought you to this point.
If there’s one thing Cobra Kai does really well it’s mine its own history for fresh story ideas. (If there’s two things it does well, it’s mine its own history for fresh story ideas and William Zabka acting like a lovable meathead.) From the series’ earliest episodes, it’s used the characters and ideas from original The Karate Kid franchise to create a really compelling saga about legacy, history, morality, and kicking people in the face. The series‘ creators have a knack for turning even the silliest aspects of the old movies — and those movies were really silly at times — into the motivation for genuinely moving and exciting drama.
That tradition very much continues in Cobra Kai Season 5, which expands the feud between mega-baddie Terry Silver (originally from The Karate Kid Part III) and eternal karate frenemies Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence. This latest season features the return of a couple surprising characters from Karate Kid’s past, along with a slew of subtle references to events and dialogue from the original cinematic trilogy. With Season 5 now available on Netflix, we’ve collected 15 of its cleverest Easter eggs — but there are more, so you can always send us more on social media.