On the finish of Cobra Kai Season 6 Half 1, it appeared like there was only one main antagonist left for our heroes to take care of — assuming they might put their very own variations apart to outlive the Sekai Taikai, that’s — with issues lastly coming to a head with John Kreese (Martin Kove). In Half 2, although, we shortly study simply how mistaken that’s.
In Episode 8, “Snakes on a Aircraft,” Daniel learns that the “thug” who was despatched to kidnap him wasn’t only a minion of Sensei Wolf (Lewis Tan) — he’s additionally a henchman of Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), who returns in a well-recognized scene: a steaming hottub, identical to followers will keep in mind him lounging in Karate Child III. And that henchman has a well-recognized story as effectively. He’s Dennis de Guzman (portrayed by William Christopher Ford), one in every of Silver’s bullies who attacked Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) at Mr. Miyagi’s tree store in the identical movie. As Terry himself says, “What would life be with out a few surprises?”
Government producer Hayden Schlossberg instructed TV Insider that the casting of that cameo was a wink to the Karate Child superfaithful: “Each season, we take a look at all of the potential characters within the Karate Child universe. We deal with them just like the toys in our sandbox. And Dennis is a kind of characters that may be a deep reduce. You could possibly be a reasonably hardcore Karate Child fan and nonetheless not know or keep in mind who the character is. You need to be like actually obsessive about Karate Child III to comprehend it. So we felt like he’s the kind of character {that a} small proportion of the viewers will acknowledge and the bigger portion simply gained’t know who he’s… And it simply finally ends up being sort of a enjoyable callback for that tremendous hardcore fan base.”
It’s additionally a utilitarian alternative, since his presence is a literal lead-in to the sudden return of Silver. “It allowed us to create a state of affairs the place—I imply, this dovetails into Terry Silver’s reveal. However we love the concept that you see anyone from Karate Child III that’s popping into our world and it’s like a bit of little bit of a touch of Terry Silver which may be there,” Schlossberg defined.
As for the choice to convey again Terry Silver for one more spherical, co-creator Jon Hurwitz defined, “Terry Silver is one in every of our favourite characters within the sequence. He went out in a dramatic style on the finish of Season 5. We find it irresistible when now we have a personality stand down for a time frame and also you simply assume that they’re gone and sufficient episodes had passed by on the present the place you’ve sort of forgotten about him to some extent. However he’s such a larger-than-life presence on this universe, as we’re winding the present down, we wished there to be Terry Silver’s final stand.” In truth, regardless of the chance that his character arc might’ve been performed, the creators didn’t assume it was proper to move to Barcelona with out him.
“He had lots of ideas in regards to the Sekai Takei — the entire thing is going on due to him, when it comes to our characters being concerned in there, and he’s not about to only allow them to go and have the success that he dreamed of. So he’s gonna do every thing he can to cease them,” Hurwitz mentioned. “Thomas Ian Griffith is such a pleasure to work with and brings such an enormous presence on the present that getting him again in that scorching tub from Karate Child III felt like one thing that we needed to do earlier than the top of the sequence. So, why not in Barcelona? “
Cobra Kai, Season 6 Half 3, 2025, Netflix