Before you say anything, no I'm not talking about the timeline of the movies preceding the Cobra Kai
series as that is pretty straightforward, with the original trilogy encompassing 1984 and 1985, while
Next Karate Kid encompasses 1994. I'm talking about the timeskips, jumps, and now the possibly
retconned timeline of the Cobra Kai series. You may have heard me discuss about the amount of time
that passes when talking about certain characters and how long they have trained. This is why it is
sometimes hard to determine how long a certain character has trained or what events take place.
Today I will be talking about why the timeline is confusing, breaking it down season by season of
what we know so far, and the now possible retcon that has shifted everything back.
But first, before we can prepare ourselves on possible confusion with the timeline and go
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Cobra Kai originally aired on May 2nd, 2018, on YouTube Red. The reason this is important
is because of something we see on screen in Ace Degenerate – the date of the All-Valley tournament
which is December 19th, 1984, an accurate date that is confirmed by a poster in the original
Karate Kid movie. After the flashback, we cut to Johnny sleeping with the text saying Present
Day. This would imply that Season 1 takes place in 2018, because as we see in later seasons when they
need to specify certain years, they do so. When Johnny gets out of jail, Miguel says, “Once school
starts, they're going to make my life miserable.” This implies that school hasn't started just yet,
and it's the end of the summer of 2018. Near the end of Strike First, we see Miguel, Sam,
Aisha, Eli, and Demetri at school, though this doesn't imply if it's the first day of school or
sometime during the middle of the fall. We see the Halloween party happening in the second half of
Esqueleto. What we don't know is exactly when this takes place, but we know because of the obvious
theme of the dance, it has to take place either in the middle of or late October. That brings us
to one of the most important episodes because of the timeskips which occur - Counterbalance. We see
Miguel taking his training to the next level and during the montage, we know we are either passing
through or in the month of December, because of the decorations on the walls of the apartment.
What we DON'T know is when his rematch with Kyler takes place, so at most we can assume either late
December or sometime in January. I would like to believe it's early January, which would bring
us to 2019. Now what is good about the end of the episode is we do have some time that passes which
does tie some things together. We know that Johnny gives Miguel the gi after school the same day
he has the fight with Kyler. Soon after, the fight goes viral and we can assume that the next day,
the dojo is packed with students as we see Miguel waiting outside the dojo. This is also the same
time that Daniel begins to train in Miyagi-Do again. When Quiver begins, we can assume this is
the same day that Counterbalance ended on. Another day passes where Robby starts work with LaRusso
Auto and another day of Cobra Kai class passes, with Demetri quitting. The day after at school,
Miguel tries to talk him into staying, but is unsuccessful in doing so. Assuming that the
fight with Kyler happened on a Monday, this would mean that we are now on Thursday of the same week.
When Miguel gets to the dojo that day after school, they start to have absences,
and after talking to Johnny that same day, the next day they have more absences again,
right before Hawk flips the script. At the end of All-Valley, Johnny puts up the poster which
gives us confirmation of what day the All-Valley Tournament takes place on – May 19th. However,
this also means that Molting can take place anywhere from late January to early May,
but given how Different but Same plays out very close to the tournament, we can assume these two
episodes happen the week of the tournament. That now brings us to Season 2, where we open up with
the fight of Kreese and Johnny, right after the tournament on the night of May 19th. We can assume
that Robby and Daniel fix up the dojo in one day on the 20th, as that same day Johnny celebrates
with Carmen, while Cobra Kai is out celebrating at the restaurant. This means that on the 21st
at 8AM, Kreese tries to get through to Johnny once more at Smitty's Diner. We could also say this is
the same day where Johnny reprimands the dojo, and runs into Daniel and Robby at the hardware
store that same day, as Robby is still wearing the same shirt later on. That would bring us to Back
in Black, which would be on May 22nd as the new students are finally allowed into the new dojo,
Kreese shows up, and Daniel begins with Sam and Robby on day one. With the cement truck training
and the Wheel Technique in the pond, we are now on May 23rd as this happens right after Daniel gets
inspiration the day before at the dealership. The problem with the rest of the season is that
most of the season outside of Pulpo could take place anywhere from early June to early August.
Moon's party is implied to take place right before school starts, and Johnny also makes the comment
that “you've been a major pain all summer.” We can assume that the party took place over the weekend,
possibly Saturday night and Daniel kicks in Johnny's door in No Mercy Sunday morning. Since
Tory hasn't been seen since the party, this would make sense that the party was during the weekend
right before school started. The big rumble also takes place during the first day of school,
which... yeah you know what happens. Season 3 opens up exactly 2 weeks after the big rumble,
where Miguel has been in coma, Robby has been on the run, Tory was expelled, and Sam was suspended
for two weeks. One day passes after the PTA meeting, as we see Sam going to school in the
morning and later seen that afternoon at Miyagi-Do with Daniel. Daniel also goes that same night to
confront Kreese at the dojo, and visits Johnny the next day to help look for Robby. That same day,
Miguel also wakes up from his coma while Daniel and Johnny are teaming up in Nature vs Nurture. In
Now You're Gonna Pay, we can assume that Robby has been in Juvie for a few days as Daniel comments,
“he won't take any of my calls.” While Daniel is in Okinawa and Johnny finally visits Robby,
Robby makes the comment “we had one good day over a month ago.” Depending on when school started, we
can assume that it is now the middle of September and one month after the school fight in early/mid
August. In King Cobra, Daniel returns from Okinawa and we can assume he was only gone for a few days,
as he spent two days in total visiting Kumiko and Chozen. Assuming that the end of the episode takes
place not too long after Johnny visits Miguel in The Right Path, this means that Miguel re-learned
to use his legs in a little over a month. Although it's unclear, time passes over the next few
episodes because the season finale December 19th takes place on.... well, December 19th. Also,
we have a date for the upcoming All-Valley tournament as seen in the fight with Kreese
vs Johnny and Daniel – May 18th... but 2019? So that means all the math we did just now,
take off one year. Season 3 now retconned itself into December 19th, 2018. But, wait a minute...
Now that we talked about that last part of Season 3, let's talk about why the timeline
is confusing and why it contradicts itself. As I mentioned before, in Ace Degenerate it mentions
that the series takes place “present day,” which would've been 2018, as that is when the series
was released. But because of Season 3's All-Valley poster, it implies that the upcoming Season 4 will
take place in 2019, and that half of Season 1, and all of Season 2/3 took place in 2018. Aside from
the first episode contradiction, there's something also evident in that Cobra Kai video game as well.
And I know what you're thinking, the game is in a way its own canon; however, it was made closely
with the writers of the show and there were intentional tastes of what was to come in Season
3 left in that game, such as the introduction of Shawn and how he possibly got sent to Juvie,
Daniel and Johnny teaming up and taking on Kreese together, and the Tom Cole story arc. If you're
playing as Daniel, there's a certain quote he says after defeating the gang members dressed as
skeletons - “Over 35 years of Skeleton nonsense.” This further adds to the game's canon setting
either near the end of or right during the middle of Season 2, as there are certain fights centered
around the rivalries – namely the Hawk/Demetri boss fight at the mall and the Tory/Sam boss fight
at the school. The game also opens up with both Hawk and Demetri, wearing similar clothes to what
they wore at the end of Season 2, in Principal Lopez's office after the massive school fight.
If this game truly did take place in 2018, Daniel would've said “over 34 years of skeleton
nonsense,” but instead they said 35, implying that Season 2 takes place in 2019. And that would make
sense, as this game came out not too long after Cobra Kai migrated to Netflix in the fall of 2020,
and if that line is an error, it would've been a simple case of Ralph Macchio re-recording his
lines. Now if that wasn't confusing enough, on April 24th, Jon Hurwitz did a Q&A on his Twitter,
and answered a question about the timeline and if Season 4 & Season 5 would have any kind of
pandemic storyline. He has officially stated that the timeline “is still in a pre-COVID world,”
meaning that the series has been retconned to 2017 for Season 1, instead of the intended 2018. I will
say that the series is great in its own right and doesn't need to have COVID as part of the
storyline, so I can't blame them for making this decision. I think also because of the pandemic and
the red tape from moving to YouTube to Netflix, this also weighed in on a factor of their decision
to retcon the timeline. At this point, we would almost be better off saying something like
“Season 1 takes place in Year 1 and ends nearly halfway into Year 2” or something to that effect.
Hopefully that clears things up some of you and kinda pieces together the timeskips that
occur frequently through Cobra Kai. This hopefully also helps with what we know
about certain fighters and how long they have been training throughout the series.
Now, we can only assume that Season 4 will end on May 18th, 2019 in the Cobra Kai world (or Year
3 if you wanna go that route), and only time will tell on which team will come out on top.
Let me know what you guys think in the comments down below: what is your favorite Cobra Kai
season? If you enjoyed the video, please consider subscribing, liking the video,
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Thanks for watching, stay beautiful, stay awesome, and we'll catch you around next time!