Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3 Brings Back A Karate Kid Legend For A Much-Needed Scene

Contains spoilers for "Cobra Kai" Season 6, Episodes 13 and 15 — "Skeletons" and "Ex-Degenerate"

Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) is in turmoil throughout Season 6 of "Cobra Kai," and what's unsettled him is what ultimately saves him: a dream appearance from his late mentor, Nariyoshi Miyagi (Pat Morita). Thanks to his dream, Daniel is finally able to put his feelings about his outsized father figure into proper proportion — to allow Mr. Miyagi to find his place as a flawed human being within Daniel's emotional landscape. That naturally doesn't make Mr. Miyagi a villain — it just makes him a human being, as imperfect as Daniel himself with his own students.

The cameo itself manages to strike the right note, even though it naturally involves a lot of computer manipulation. While the combination of old footage, CGI and AI audio does feel a bit "uncanny valley," it's hard to deny the moment its emotional impact, improving on a similar cameo earlier in the season. Why has Daniel's mind been so preoccupied with Mr. Miyagi lately? What was his previous dream about his mentor like? And how did the "Cobra Kai" team pull off their Miyagi mirage? Let's break it all down.

For a big chunk of Season 6, Daniel LaRusso has been preoccupied with the posthumous reputation of his mentor, Mr. Miyagi. In the middle of training his team for the Sekai Taikai, he discovers old clippings which reveal that, as a young man, Miyagi killed one of his opponents in the very same tournament. 

Since Miyagi had trained Daniel in a much more subtle, balanced and cerebral version of karate than Cobra Kai and other dojos practice, Daniel is thrown for a loop by the news. It also broke a big "Cobra Kai" rule about the saintly Mr. Miyagi, shocking fans. Since previous seasons — including Season 3, where we finally learn that Mr. Miyagi died of a long illness in 2011 — have painted him in an angelic light, this is a startling development.

Daniel is so unable to accept the fact that Mr. Miyagi is imperfect that he dreams during Episode 10 of Season 6, "Eunjangdo," that his sensei is mercilessly beating him up. As the crowd screams, Miyagi informs Daniel that he never told him about his darker side because Daniel could never accept the truth. He awakens from the nightmare shaken — but it's not until Episode 13, "Skeletons," that he's finally able to put his mentor's dark side into perspective. 

During Episode 13, "Skeletons," Daniel dreams again of Mr. Miyagi. Instead of being beaten by his mentor, however, this time Daniel confronts him and begs him for real answers. He berates him for dying without giving him a clue or firm guidance as to how to continue his life. In desperation, Daniel demands that Miyagi give him something to believe in — some reason to keep fighting onward.

But Mr. Miyagi simply looks at him sadly and tells him that it's not actually about winning or losing, and in forgetting this fact, Daniel has lost his grip on what Mr. Miyagi has so valiantly taught him about the art of the crane kick. That's what Daniel's lost in his pursuit of pure victory — the joy of the art form. Daniel wakes from the dream refreshed and happy, and talks to Samantha (Mary Mouser) about her conflicted feelings regarding her choice to quit the resurgent Sekai Taikai. 

The dream Miyagi's big gift to Daniel? A new point of view on karate and mentorship alike. Ralph Macchio wanted Miyagi to be a big part of "Cobra Kai," and this storyline more than fulfills that desire.

"Cobra Kai" presumably resurrected the late Pat Morita's character for Episode 13 via the same techniques used in the second part of Season 6 to bring Mr. Miyagi back. Brian Takahashi played Miyagi in scenes with Ralph Macchio. He was then overlaid with CGI imagery of Morita. "Cobra Kai" co-creators Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald and Hayden Schlossberg collaborated with Morita's family and "Karate Kid" franchise creator Robert Mark Kamen to ensure the right likeness, and used a combination of digital techniques to get the character's voice down.

Why hire a younger actor instead of modeling all of it with CGI? "We just like the idea of getting a glimpse at Miyagi through Daniel's dreams because it allows us a little bit of creativity in terms of what Miyagi would look like. He didn't know Miyagi at age 30 or 40...and so it just gave us the freedom to kind of cast somebody that we felt would look like Mr Miyagi, act like Mr Miyagi," admitted series co-creator Hayden Schlossberg to TV Insider. 

Still, it took awhile to finally create a digital image that everyone approved of. "Believe me, we've seen the scariest versions, the recreation, and you just go through a process where you try to bring it to that place where the audience can understand what you're going for. And we ended up feeling really happy," Schlossberg told TV Insider. Since Ralph Macchio has previously expressed interest in a Mr. Miyagi-centered prequel series and said he wanted "Cobra Kai" to explore the teacher's origin story, it was probably wise for "Cobra Kai" to lay some groundwork.

What have Daniel's dreams of Mr. Miyagi finally taught him? That it's okay for your mentors to be flawed, imperfect individuals, and it doesn't mean you're doomed to follow in their footsteps just because you find their advice useful. Giving Johnny (William Zabka) a pep talk during "Ex-Degenerate," Daniel points out that Johnny and Cobra Kai are no longer beholden to John Kreese (Martin Kove) just as Daniel — as much as he admires Mr. Miyagi — can take Miyagi-Do in its own fresh direction without the burden of his mentor's no-longer-pristine memory weighing him down. 

Telling Johnny that their mentors are no more and no less than simply human, Daniel explains that once they both accept that, they can let go, grow up — and allow themselves to accept their own imperfections as teachers and men. It's advice that helps Johnny finally reach the acme of Sekai Taikai — and helps the two men forge a brand new friendship from this shared knowledge.