A new Cobra Kai season 4 video from Netflix has confirmed the return of Thomas Ian Griffith's The Karate Kid Part III villain Terry Silver. The series acts as a continuation of the iconic martial arts comedy-drama film franchise and follows former protagonist Daniel LaRusso and antagonist Johnny Lawrence as the feud between the two reignites when the latter chooses to reopen the titular dojo. Unlike the films, however, the series puts its focus on Johnny and paints him in a more positive light as he chooses to use the dojo to train social outcasts while also exploring the struggles he's faced in the years since the first film.
After three films with Ralph Macchio in the lead and an attempt to keep it alive with Pat Morita in the Hilary Swank-starring Next Karate Kid, a revival of the Karate Kid films came in 2010 with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith in the leads. Though a box office success and receiving generally positive reviews, a sequel has never materialized for the film and instead Cobra Kai came to life as a YouTube Original. As the video platform began to move away from producing original series, Netflix acquired the acclaimed dramedy for its third and fourth seasons and potentially more.
With only a few months left until the estimated premiere date of season 4 of the series, Netflix released a new video confirming the return of Griffith's Silver for the next chapter of Cobra Kai. Though not announcing the exact return of the series, the star's reprisal of the villain continues the show's expansion of exploring the film past of its characters. The video can be viewed below:
Though The Karate Kid Part III was easily the weakest installment in Macchio's original trilogy and only barely ekes out Swank's Next Karate Kid as the worst of the Morita-starring films, it's hard to deny the power that was Griffith's Silver. One of the more intriguing elements about Netflix's sequel series is just how it's continued the stories of its legacy characters and continually introduced more for good storytelling purposes as the show has gone on. Given last season saw the return of John Kreese in a more antagonistic role, it should be interesting to see how the next chapter re-introduces Silver into the universe and what he's been up to.
Despite Kreese relenting defeat to Johnny and Daniel in the season 3 finale of Netflix's Cobra Kai, his calling of Silver and the villain's forthcoming return should point to another major challenge in their lives. Plus, with Karate Kid Part II's Chozen having returned in the last season, the door certainly isn't closing any time soon for more people from Daniel and Johnny's past to come back. Fans will have to wait and see what Terry has in store for the heroes when Cobra Kai returns for season 4 later this year.
Source: Netflix