There wouldn’t be Cobra Kai without the actors who played the teens in the series. We watched as relationships and friendships developed, with the final episodes offering a chance for redemption and forgiveness.
Mary Mouser, Peyton List, and Xolo Maridueña were among the cast members who chatted with us in a roundtable interview about Cobra Kai season 6, part 3. I wanted to know more about the development of a female friendship and about a beautiful almost-bookend moment.
From enemies to friends in Cobra Kai
The enemy to lovers trope is popular in the romance world. What about enemies to friends? That’s something Cobra Kai has offered us via two storylines: Sam and Tory and Robby and Miguel. In a world where a lot of women still put each other down because they feel like competition, I wanted to find out what it was like for Mary Mouser and Peyton List to bring us their storyline of a growing female friendship.
Mouser started off the answer, talking about the development behind the scenes:
“It is a very long and very deep conversation to be had that I think we’ve gotten to have a little bit throughout this process off camera…It was vitally important to both of us that it be handled carefully. We have a wonderful team that made that happen, but I know it was very important to me from the beginning of the arc.
It needed to happen for story purposes to drive the story along and I’ve loved every bit of it, but I think we live in a world that isn’t so kind to women in general, and the sad part of that is when it becomes something that you internalize and then let out on other women as you’re processing. It is definitely something I think a lot of people can relate to growing up as a young woman.
To see that get to play out on screen—it was tough at moments, because it would hurt to want to hurt somebody in that way that Samantha did, but I’m so grateful that we’ve landed in the place that we have. I think to show people that you have to have the other side of that and the resolution…to help to heal your inner young girl who needs community and needs to cheer each other on.”
List continued the answer going into the way things developed between the two characters in the final season.
“I’m really happy with where the writers took the storyline in the final season where Sam and Tory are kind of over it and they’ve come to this closed place. Obviously, it gets opened by up again, but I really loved that sleepover episode with Johnny and Devin where that feels like a modern girl place to be. Yeah, maybe we disagreed in the past, but we’re kind of rising above it and being the bigger person. Everybody makes mistakes, and owning your mistakes that you’ve made throughout that process is huge and so powerful.”
Mouser jumped in to agree with that:
“It’s always scare to be the first…to admit that you’re wrong…Every one of our characters have grown from that conversation.”
The bookend moment for Miguel in Cobra Kai
While Johnny does have the real bookend moment, for the teens, it’s all about Miguel. I wanted to find out what that was like for Xolo Maridueña filming that.
“It’s the weirdest feeling because it feels like both so much time has passed and yet I’ve blinked and it’s gone by so quickly. That scene getting to sit with Billy [William Zabka] on the curb outside of Cobra Kai, as we were setting up for that shot, I was like ‘damn, it’s been that long since we came back out and did this?’
I’ll forever be so appreciative of Billy because he really welcomed all of us with open arms. He and Ralph [Macchio] just made us feel so comfortable. That was such a foreign feeling at that age. Thanks, Billy!”
Cobra Kai is now available to stream on Netflix.