'Cobra Kai' Just Explained Why Ali Really Dumped Daniel
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Mild spoilers follow for Season 3 of Cobra Kai.
The third season of Cobra Kai, now streaming on Netflix, includes a number of homages to the original Karate Kid movies, including a return to Okinawa, and the reappearance of several characters from the films. Among the familiar faces that show up this season is Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue), the former love interest of both Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and his longtime rival Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka).
Ali had previously appeared in earlier seasons of Cobra Kai via flashbacks, taken from footage from The Karate Kid—most notably moments which illustrated the end of her relationship with Johnny and the beginning of her romance with Daniel. However, her return to the Valley in the latter half of Season 3 means that an unresolved plot point regarding Ali and Daniel's off-screen breakup has finally been resolved.
In The Karate Kid Part II, Daniel visits Mr Miyagi (Pat Morita) the morning after the high school prom, where he explains that Ali wrecked Miyagi's car, and left him for a football player from UCLA. While this freed Daniel up to then develop feelings for Kumiko (Tamlyn Tomita) during his visit to Okinawa, the reasons he gives for the breakup seemed out-of-character and quite heartless for Ali, who was portrayed as being sweet and kind in the first movie.
As it turns out, Miyagi (and the audience) only got Daniel's side of the story. When Ali runs into Daniel and his wife Amanda (Courtney Henggeler) at a holiday party, we finally hear her version of events, which play out a little differently. This video from the Cobra Kai Theory channel breaks down what really happened:
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