COBRA KAI Creators Reveal That Terry Silver's Return Has Been Planned Since Season 1
Fans have known since this past season of Cobra Kai that the maniacal villain Terry Silver, played by actor Thomas Ian Griffith, would be returning to this upcoming season of the series. He first appeared on The Karate Kid III, and a younger version of the character was featured in the backstory of John Kreese (Martin Kove) in the show’s third season. So it was only fitting that Silver return this season, but apparently, that’s been the plan since before the show began.
Cobra Kai co-showrunner Hayden Schlossberg told GameSpot:
"We love the Terry Silver character from Karate Kid III. We've talked about his character from the beginning, you know, from before writing the first episode. You just don't know at what point he's going to enter in the early days. We didn't say, 'Okay, it's gonna be Season 4.' You really have to kind of plan things out. We knew that we wanted to have a lot of fun with that character and we wanted to devote the story space to that character."
The original plan included a storyline that saw Silver returning to befriend Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and ultimately stealing Cobra Kai out from under him, but that obviously had to be rethought, as Johnny has now teamed up with Daniel (Ralph Macchio). Schlossberg continued:
"By the time Season 4 hit, we wanted to bring that energy into the show. We've seen, at that point, Kreese with Johnny and it would be interesting to add a contemporary perspective--somebody who knows Kreese and can talk to Kreese in a different way."
As for why the creators decided to bring back Terry Silver at all, considering The Karate Kid III is not the most favored film in the franchise, Schlossberg explained:
"[We get to] explore the craziness that is Terry Silver. We understand that movies like Karate Kid III and Rocky 4 back in the '80s were not considered like the critical darling that the original movies like Rocky and Karate Kid were. But we were just kids at the time watching these movies and you just kind of fall in love with Drago, even though it's kind of ridiculous. And Terry Silver was sort of like that, to this franchise."
I got to see the fourth season of Cobra Kai already, and it’s great! The character Terry Silver is totally complex and intriguing, and he really mixes things up this season.
Cobra Kai season 4 hits Netflix this Friday.