Warning: SPOILERS for Cobra Kai Season 5Season 5 of Cobra Kai also literally means a new calendar season passes for Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), and their students, friends, and family. Cobra Kai season 5 picks up after Terry's ultimate victory in season 4's climactic All Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament. Thanks to Silver bribing the referee, Tory Nichols (Peyton List) became the first female All Valley Champion, which cemented Cobra Kai as the dominant dojo in the San Fernando Valley. As a result, Daniel and Johnny were forced to close their Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang karate dojos.
Cobra Kai season 5 centers on Terry Silver and his diabolical plans to expand his dojo's reach. In The Karate Kid Part III, Silver schemed to take over all karate in the Valley but Daniel LaRusso foiled him. Over 30 years later, the resurgent ponytailed sensei is dreaming much bigger: Along with buying and turning every dojo in the Valley into Cobra Kai, Silver wants to go global. Terry dreams of influencing teenagers all over the world and teaching them the Way of the Fist. To stop Terry's worldwide takeover, Daniel recruited his old Karate Kid Part II rival-turned-"karate cousin," Chozen Toguchi (Yuji Okumoto). With Chozen as his backup, Daniel has to use his own resources to fight a new kind of war against Terry Silver, even as Cobra Kai's sensei imports his own friends from overseas to help Terry teach his ever-growing army of students.
All of Cobra Kai season 5's action and drama takes place in the summer of 2019. Season 5 starts an unspecified amount of time after Cobra Kai season 4's All Valley Tournament, which took place on May 19, 2019. But no more than a few days have passed because Miguel Diaz (Xolo Maridueña) has just arrived in Mexico to find his birth father when Cobra Kai season 5 begins. Yet Daniel has also had enough time to fly Chozen, who is newly arrived, to his home in the Valley. By the time Cobra Kai season 5 is over, summer break still hasn't ended because none of the teenagers have returned to West Valley High School. In fact, there's relatively little conversation among the kids like Samantha LaRusso (Mary Mouser), Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz (Jacob Bertrand), and Demitri Alexopoulos (Gianni Decenzo) about going back to school in Cobra Kai season 5. However, Amanda LaRusso (Courtney Henggeler) is very interested in sipping mai tais by their pool with Daniel and not missing out on enjoying the hot summer days in the Valley.
Cobra Kai Seasons 1-5 Span Just 2 Years
Incredibly, everything that has happened in Cobra Kai seasons 1-5 occurred in just two years. Johnny restarted the Cobra Kai dojo and took Miguel under his wing in the summer of 2017, and the kids went through a full year of high school before Miguel won the All Valley Tournament at the end of Cobra Kai season 1. The events of Cobra Kai season 2 took place during summer 2018 and ended on the first day back at West Valley High, which infamously ended with a karate gang fight that left Miguel hospitalized. Cobra Kai season 3 spanned the fall of 2018 and ended on December 19th, with the Cobra Kai students wrecking the LaRussos' home in a big fight with Miyagi Do and Eagle Fang. Finally, Cobra Kai season 4 went from January 2019 to the All Valley Tournament on May 2019. It has certainly been an eventful two years in the Valley!
Of course, the wider "Miyagiverse" spans decades, and even hundreds of years if the starting point is when Shimpo Sensei Miyagi traveled to China and returned to Okinawa with the secret of Miyagi-Do karate. Mr. Miyagi (Noriyuki "Pat" Morita) lived through most of the 20th century before his death in 2011, and both Terry Silver and John Kreese (Martin Kove) fought in Vietnam, which Cobra Kai has detailed in flashbacks. Cobra Kai season 5 is another cruel summer for the kids and their senseis, but the season ends with another huge turning point in all of their lives.
Cobra Kai Season 5 is streaming on Netflix.