At the end of Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 1, it looked like there was just one major antagonist left for our heroes to deal with — assuming they could put their own differences aside to survive the Sekai Taikai, that is — with things finally coming to a head with John Kreese (Martin Kove). In Part 2, though, we quickly learn just how wrong that is.
In Episode 8, “Snakes on a Plane,” Daniel learns that the “thug” who was sent to kidnap him wasn’t just a minion of Sensei Wolf (Lewis Tan) — he’s also a henchman of Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), who returns in a familiar scene: a steaming hottub, just like fans will remember him lounging in Karate Kid III. And that henchman has a familiar story as well. He’s Dennis de Guzman (portrayed by William Christopher Ford), one of Silver’s bullies who attacked Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) at Mr. Miyagi’s tree shop in the same film. As Terry himself says, “What would life be without a few surprises?”
Executive producer Hayden Schlossberg told TV Insider that the casting of that cameo was a wink to the Karate Kid superfaithful: “Every season, we look at all the potential characters in the Karate Kid universe. We treat them like the toys in our sandbox. And Dennis is one of those characters that is a deep cut. You could be a pretty hardcore Karate Kid fan and still not know or remember who the character is. You have to be like really obsessed with Karate Kid III to know it. So we felt like he’s the type of character that a small proportion of the audience will recognize and the larger portion just won’t know who he is… And it just ends up being kind of a fun callback for that super hardcore fan base.”
It’s also a utilitarian choice, since his presence is a literal lead-in to the unexpected return of Silver. “It allowed us to create a situation where—I mean, this dovetails into Terry Silver’s reveal. But we love the idea that you see somebody from Karate Kid III that’s popping into our world and it’s like a little bit of a hint of Terry Silver that may be there,” Schlossberg explained.
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As for the decision to bring back Terry Silver for another round, co-creator Jon Hurwitz explained, “Terry Silver is one of our favorite characters in the series. He went out in a dramatic fashion at the end of Season 5. We love it when we have a character stand down for a period of time and you just think that they’re gone and enough episodes had gone by on the show where you’ve kind of forgotten about him to some degree. But he’s such a larger-than-life presence in this universe, as we’re winding the show down, we wanted there to be Terry Silver’s last stand.” In fact, despite the possibility that his character arc could’ve been done, the creators didn’t think it was right to head to Barcelona without him.
“He had a lot of thoughts about the Sekai Takei — the whole thing is happening because of him, in terms of our characters being involved in there, and he’s not about to just let them go and have the success that he dreamed of. So he’s gonna do everything he can to stop them,” Hurwitz said. “Thomas Ian Griffith is such a pleasure to work with and brings such a huge presence on the show that getting him back in that hot tub from Karate Kid III felt like something that we had to do before the end of the series. So, why not in Barcelona? “
Cobra Kai, Season 6 Part 3, 2025, Netflix
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