[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 3 finale of Cobra Kai, "December 19."]

Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) have been through a lot in these first three seasons of Cobra Kai. So much, in fact, that the unthinkable has happened; Daniel and Johnny are finally pushing their differences aside to take on John Kreese (Martin Kove) together.

Yes, Cobra Kai is often a fun show with tons of laughs and some super cool fight sequences, but it’s always successfully woven in just enough honest drama to reflect the real human experience. So while Season 3 does tee up a level of commitment from Daniel and Johnny to unite their dojos to take down Kreese once and for all, it can’t be that simple. There’s still loads of history between them, differences in their teaching and fighting styles, and many more potential complications.

Ralph Macchio and William Zabka in Cobra Kai Season 3
Image via Netflix

While continuing to spread the Cobra Kai love, Zabka joined us for a new episode of Collider Connected. Yes, the conversation does focus on The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai a good deal, but it also gave us an opportunity to discuss how Zabka’s journey in the industry began and some of his less-talked-about titles, like his Academy Award nominated short film, Most. We’ll have that full conversation for you next week, but while we wait, how about a little tease of the conversation? Maybe the portion of it that focused on what to expect from Johnny at the beginning of Season 4?

The last time I spoke with Zabka, it was ahead of the Season 3 launch. Of course, he couldn’t reveal any Season 3 details at the time, but he was able to give us a sense of what’s to come by detailing Johnny’s headspace at the very end of Season 2. So this time around, I opted to take that same approach to get an idea of where we might see Johnny at the beginning of Season 4. Here’s what Zabka had to say when discussing how Johnny feels about his team-up with Daniel in the Season 3 finale:

“It’s a complicated feeling. For one, Daniel just pretty much saved him. Kreese was just about to choke him out. So, I think he’s purged at that moment. There’s an emptiness [in] it, but he’s empowered with Daniel and there’s a good feeling of burying the hatchet. But there’s also an intensity. They have a common foe in Kreese now. So the feeling of that was a relief in a sense of, ‘I have a partner and we have the same goal here. But we have a lot of work to do, and there’s still a lot of history between us. And we’re both different.’ And maybe it’s like, 'We want this to work, and now here we go.’”

William Zabka, Martin Kove and Ralph Macchio in Cobra Kai Season 3
Image via Netflix

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So that’s how Johnny’s feeling rolling into Season 4, but what about Zabka and the rest of the Cobra Kai cast and crew? While they did find a whole lot of success when the show was running on YouTube, the shift to Netflix increased the fanbase exponentially. You could feel it when Season 3 premiered back in January. Did that added enthusiasm impact the filming of Season 4? Here’s what Zabka had to say about that:

“It’s just encouraging. It’s like, you have a good show and you have a matinee and the curtains close and people are applauding and they like it, and you know you’ve got the evening show coming now and you’ve gotta go out and you know there’s a sense of, ‘Okay, it’s working. They like it,’ and a new kind of energy. It feels good. It feels good when it’s working. But as an actor, my job is to stay in the micro of it. You can’t be swayed by that. You can’t be looking at that. It’s like, if you’re a baseball player and you’re up at bat, you can’t look to the left and see who’s in the stands. You’ve gotta keep your eye on the ball. So, we’re all doing that, keeping our heads tucked. The writers are doing their thing and we’re putting our hearts on our selves and beating our arms up and shooting big and wide and the stories are deep and wide. I think we’re gonna deliver a great Season 4.”

Image via YouTube

If you’re looking for more from Zabka, stay tuned! We’ll have his full Collider Connected interview for you next week and it includes details about his original Karate Kid audition, his appearance on How I Met Your Mother, and so much more.

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