Cobra Kai creators on that major Big Red and Little Red reveal
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Warning: This story contains spoilers for Cobra Kai season 5.
There were plenty of big reveals in Cobra Kai season 5: Jessica Andrews (Robyn Lively) is related to Amanda LaRusso (Courtney Henggeler)! Chozen (Yuji Okumoto) is in love with Kumiko (Tamlyn Tomita)! Johnny (William Zabka) is an Olive Garden superfan!
But one moment in the finale confirmed something that fans have been wondering about for years: Yes, Cobra Kai dojo student Big Red (Christopher Ryan Lewis) and Miyagi-Do pupil Little Red (Shane Donovan Lewis) are, in fact, brothers!
While some fans assumed that the duo (also known as the Ginger Twins) were related, it had never been explicitly stated in the show. In the season 2 episode "All In," Little Red — who had been a student at Cobra Kai with Big Red — decided to join Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) at Miyagi-Do after learning that some Cobra Kai students trashed LaRusso's dojo. Big Red appeared to try to stop Little Red, to no avail.
Netflix Little Red (Shane Donovan Lewis) and Big Red (Christopher Ryan Lewis) used to both study karate with Johnny (William Zabka) at Cobra Kai
But the boys' blood relation was not confirmed until the season 5 finale. As they leave the Cobra Kai parking lot after the epic Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) takedown, Big Red asks, "Need a ride?" "Yeah," replies Little Red. "I told Mom I'd be home hours ago." Big Red puts his arm around his brother and assures him, "Don't worry. I got your back."
So why was now the right time to drop this reveal about Big and Little Red? Cobra Kai co-creator Hayden Schlossberg says it was part fan service, and part an effort to give the loyal background actors — who are brothers in real life — some time in the spotlight.
"When you work on a show for five years that has a dojo setting or a school setting, you have background actors that are really characters themselves," he explains. For a while, we've wanted to give some of those background performers some lines and give them some foreground moments. It just felt with the climax of Cobra Kai coming to a head that some of these people that are recognizable to fans on this 50-episode journey get their moment."
Netflix Shane Donovan Lewis and Christopher Ryan Lewis in 'Cobra Kai'
Schlossberg notes that the writers have always considered Big Red and Little Red brothers. "We get into the backstory of every single character. We've talked about Big Red and Little Red and what it must be like at the dinner table after the mall fight, after the school brawl, after the showdown at the laser tag place," he says with a laugh. "It must be really awkward at dinner."
Adds co-creator Jon Hurwitz, "We've talked about, like, do their parents know anything about what's going on there? The funny thing for us is in real life they are brothers and they were called the ginger twins like immediately. So, there's a part of us that just assumed everyone knew that they were brothers because in our world, the way we talked about it was like, this is a house divided."
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