“Cobra Kai” creators on that shocking death at Sekai Taikai and what's next

"It leads to a lot of soul-searching in the last five episodes."

Warning: This story contains spoilers for Cobra Kai season 6, part 2.

Clearly, Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan) wasn't exaggerating when he warned Miyagi-Do about the Sekai Taikai: "People have died!"

And that's exactly what happened in episode 10 of Cobra Kai's final season. The ominously titled "Eunjangdo" — named for the ancient knife Kreese (Martin Kove) received from Master Kim (C.S. Lee) in episode 2 — began with the news that one dojo, Udar Tigar, was disqualified from the Sekai Taikai for using performance enhancing drugs. That allowed the previously eliminated Cobra Kai to get back in the tournament, setting up a pair of grudge matches in the semifinals: Miyagi-Do's Sam LaRusso (Mary Mouser) versus Cobra Kai's Tory Nichols (Peyton List), and the Iron Dragons' Axel Kovačević (Patrick Luwis) versus Miyagi-Do's Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan).

Related: Cobra Kai creators on [SPOILER'S] return and that 'karate Braveheart' brawl

Before any of them could advance to the finals, however, a scuffle on the mat between the Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do students turned into an all-out brawl between all the remaining dojos, thanks to some violent interference by the disgruntled Udar Tigar sensei. The resulting melee — what executive producer Josh Heald called "karate Braveheart" — ended in tragedy after Kreese unknowingly dropped his Eunjangdo while fighting across the crowd to confront his Army buddy-turned-nemesis, Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith). This season's newest Cobra Kai villain, Kwon (Brandon H. Lee), picked up the knife with the goal of plunging it into Axel — only to impale himself on the blade after Axel felled him with a brutal roundhouse kick.

His scream of pain snapped all the fighters out of their karate fog, and everyone — including Miyagi-Do senseis Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) — watched in horrified silence as Kwon bled out on the mat.

Related: Cobra Kai's Sean Kanan put off surgery to film Mike Barnes' season 6 return

Kwon's demise marks the series' first karate-related death, and exec producer Hayden Schlossberg says it will lead to "a lot of soul searching" for the characters in Cobra Kai's final five episodes. "You're always trying to make each season next-level insane. This brawl had to end in a way that took everyone's breath away," says Schlossberg, who created Cobra Kai with Heald and Jon Hurwitz. Kwon's death "really stems from Master Kim and Kreese and this feeling that you should have absolutely no mercy. That knife was brought to Barcelona not with the intention of ending up in one of the Cobra Kai students. It was probably meant for Johnny or Daniel or Silver, one of Kreese’s enemies."

Schlossberg says the writers chose the Eunjango's victim with maximum shock value in mind. "Kwon is a character that you'd never suspect to die because we set him up this season as this new Big Bad," he explains. "But as you see in the second block [of episodes], there's another big bad: Axel. We love the idea of creating this Godzilla that a Mechagodzilla ends up killing. You’ll see how that death reverberates in terms of what people think about the tournament and karate, and it leads to a lot of soul-searching in the last five episodes."

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One key question everyone will face in the wake of Kwon's death is whether or not to continue the Sekai Taikai tournament at all. "Everybody is left to ask, 'What now?' And there's no right answer," says Heald. "It's a little murky and it's a little uncomfortable, and that's a great place to be story-wise at this point in the series." The last five episodes will "bring it back to the Valley," adds Hurwitz. "It's going to be fun and emotional and tense and badass and action-packed and surprising and fulfilling."

Schlossberg, meanwhile, compares the third and final part of Cobra Kai's final season to another famous trilogy. "We knew the middle block of these three parts would be like The Empire Strikes Back — that it would end in this dark, 'What the hell is going to happen next?' place. The final five will end in resolution. Ewoks will cheer, and all will be right — depending on who you're rooting for on the show."

Cobra Kai season 6 part 3 will premiere in 2025 on Netflix.