Martin Kove and Thomas Ian Griffith in ‘Cobra Kai’.Credit: Netflix

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Cobra Kai season 6.

Is John Kreese (Martin Kove) really dead? Not even the Cobra Kai creators agree.

Sure, in the penultimate episode of Cobra Kai’s final season, Kreese confronts his friend-turned-nemesis Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) on the latter’s yacht, determined to stop him from messing with Johnny (William Zabka) during the finals of the Sekai Taikai tournament. A knock-down, drag-out brawl ensues — and then Kreese blows up the yacht by tossing his lit cigar into a puddle of spilled gasoline. Cut to…

Terry Silver yacht explodes on ‘Cobra Kai’.

Seems like no one could survive an explosion like that…. right?

“We didn’t see the bodies!” says Hayden Schlossberg, who created Cobra Kai with Josh Heald and Jon Hurwitz. “It’s a very wide shot. Kreese has been assumed dead in the past and then pops back up, so we will have to see.”

Heald and Hurwitz, however, have a slightly more pessimistic view. “Look at that explosion!” says Heald with a laugh. ” You know how much staff is on a yacht? Kreese took out like 30 people… They were covered in gasoline!” Adds Hurwitz, “We all assumed when filming that the guys died as a result of that.” Still, Hurwitz admits “we wanted to leave ourselves options,” so they shot a scene with Martin Kove that gave them the option to have his character survive the explosion… somehow.

Johnny Lawrence on the cover of Sports Illustrated in ‘Cobra Kai’.Netflix

“When we were filming that final montage we have in the finale — currently we land on that magazine, the Sports Illustrated, with Johnny and Daniel on the cover. We actually had the camera continue over and we have another magazine that had Terry Silver on it, [with a story about] the mystery of what happened to him,” explains Hurwitz. “We even had Marty there to reach in with his hand and pick up the magazine. While filming it, we knew that it was ridiculous and would not make the cut.”

Adds Heald, “Like Hayden, we were having trouble saying goodbye to Kreese and we were like, maybe there’s a chance… And then we saw the explosion and it was like, “No! Nothing survives that.” Sounds like he forgot one very important fact: Cobra Kai never dies. (Sorry. We had to.)

Cobra Kai season 6 is streaming now on Netflix.