The highly anticipated third season of the hit series Cobra Kai is almost upon us, with a newly released series of images hinting at things to come. Season 2 of the Karate Kid sequel series ended on a hugely dramatic note, with a fight breaking out between the two warring dojos, and this batch of stills shows many of the characters dealing with the fallout.

The third season will begin with Miguel in the hospital and Johnny blaming himself, with his son Robby on the run from the law. To make matters somehow even worse, John Kreese has now taken over control of Cobra Kai and is once again instilling his students with all the wrong moral messages. Based on these new images, it looks like Robby will eventually either be caught or turn himself in, getting a 90s heartthrob haircut somewhere along the way.

Set 34 years after the first Karate Kid movie, Cobra Kai re-examines the narrative from Daniel's rival, Johnny Lawrence's point of view. Now a struggling alcoholic, Johnny decides to reopen the Cobra Kai karate dojo, leading to the rekindling of his old rivalry with Daniel LaRusso. Cobra Kai sees the return of both Ralph Macchio as Daniel and William Zabka as Johnny. In the final minutes of the second season, a massive high school brawl breaks out, concluding with Daniel LaRusso's student and Johnny Lawrence's son, Robby, kicking Johnny's number one student, Miguel, over a bannister and onto a set of stairs several feet below, leaving him with potentially life-threatening injuries.

Interestingly, the decision to end the series on such a nail-biting, unresolved note came before the show had even been renewed for a third season, a gamble that left Zabka an emotional wreck. "And, then at the end of Season 2, it was this big question mark," the actor said recently. "I came home from shooting that with a knot in my stomach and pit in my throat going, 'There'd better be a Season 3 to work this out man, because I am like, sure enough, I'm destroyed right now.' We hadn't been renewed yet. I'm like, 'If it ends here I'm in so much trouble. Like, I'm gonna need years of therapy to get over it.'"

Thankfully, the third season of Cobra Kai is all ready to go and has even managed to avoid any delays amid the ongoing global situation. Fortunately, the series was able to wrap production and get everything necessary finished before the entertainment industry was put on indefinite hiatus some months ago. Showrunner Josh Heald said, "Thankfully with season 3, we wrapped production before the end of 2019, and we wrapped post-production... I think there was a little bit of overlap." He also noted that, "we finished our final mix, the last big piece of post-production in person."

Cobra Kai stars Courtney Henggeler, Xolo Maridueña, Tanner Buchanan, Mary Mouser, Jacob Bertrand, Gianni Decenzo, Vanessa Rubio, Peyton List, and Martin Kove alongside Zabka and Macchio. Cobra Kai was created by Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald. The series has proven to be a huge hit for Netflix, with the streaming giant recently revealing that the show has already been renewed for a fourth season. Netflix will premiere Cobra Kai season 3 on January 8th, 2021. These images come to us from Entertainment Weekly.