'Cobra Kai' Only Has One Major Villain Left to Reintroduce

As Season Four of Cobra Kai fades into the annals of Netflix after its New Year's Eve debut, we'll give it one thing: The show knows how to introduce its characters—or, more specifically, how to reintroduce its friends and foes.

The series, which debuted on the now long-forgotten YouTube Red, has faced the challenge of resurrecting nearly every character from The Karate Kid trilogy, save for a Mr. Miyagi hologram and/or terrifying CGI recreation. Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence? Check. Kumiko and Chozen? Check. John Kreese and Terry Silver? Right. The evil senseis too. If you dig through the three Karate Kid films—excluding Hilary Swank's The Next Karate Kid and the Jaden Smith-Jackie Chan team-up—there's really only one major character left for Cobra Kai to bring into Season Five's mix.

What's that? You feel like your bonsai tree is about to be stolen? That's because the only OG villain left from the '80s is Mike Barnes.

In 1989's let's-pretend-it-never-happened final act of the LaRusso-Miyagi trilogy, The Karate Kid Part III, Silver recruits a hotshot karate student, Mike Barnes (played by Sean Kanan) to square up against LaRusso in the All Valley Tournament. He loses, of course, but not before terrorizing a post-pubescent LaRusso for a good chunk of the movie. Memorably (or not, depending on how successful you were in scrubbing this from your brain), Barnes goes on a rock-climbing expedition to dig up Mr. Miyagi's bonsai tree and steal it from Danny. You can understand why Cobra Kai fans aren't exactly calling for Barnes to return. But considering that the Cobra Kai team just rebooted Terry Silver for a 21st-Century audience, why not?

Now, you don't have to look very hard to see that Kanan is itching to join the Cobra Kai crew and bully Danny again. Just look at the above picture of him clowning around a gaggle of bonsai trees. Would Barnes actually fit into Season Five? Easily. Silver is about to expand the Cobra Kai dojo into a karate monopoly of the Valley. Now that Kreese is in jail, he'll need someone to help him out. Cue the dramatic reveal: Barnes strutting into Miyagi-do, muttering some threats against Danny like it's 1989 all over again. Not a lot of math to work out here. But that's why Cobra Kai is the ultimate salve, right?

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