One could say Cobra Kai is like a Shakespearean drama — trading the Elizabethan era for the cutthroat world of martial arts in Southern California, of course. Two karate dojos, both alike in dignity, holding onto an ancient grudge. Just like the feuding Capulets and Montagues, Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do are constantly battling it out to see who can reign as the top dojo in the Valley. And of course, it’s not a Shakespearan romance without its share of star-crossed lovers.

Throughout the seasons, we’ve seen the “Love Quad” — Samantha LaRusso (Mary Mouser), Miguel Diaz (Xolo Maridueña), Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan) and Tory Nichols (Peyton List) — falling in and out of love. Plenty of teenage relationships can get messy, but when karate is involved, it’s more than your heart that’s breaking. From school fights to party ambushes, they’ve taken their personal feelings to the next level.

🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐 Season 5 finally puts an end to the Love Quad’s longtime feud and reunites the young couples. Mouser, Maridueña and List sat down with Tudum to answer our burning questions about the group’s ever-changing relationship statuses, as well as Season 5’s happy ending.

Sam and Miguel have really gone through it over the seasons. Are you happy that they’re finally back together in Season 5?

Xolo Maridueña: While some of it sometimes seems a little soap opera-y, I think where we end on Season 5 with these two coming together and putting their differences aside was a good ending. We'll see if another 360 happens, but I’ve really enjoyed the love trapezoid that we've created on the show.

Mary Mouser: But I feel like they just don't have it figured out. They keep trying to figure it out, which to me, feels very real. That feels like me at that age — just doing the best to figure it out, but not having all the right answers because when your heart's involved, things get complicated. I always think it's nice to see them mess it up and try to bring it back together. I love the fact that they can always have this trust and relationship with each other, which means so much to me as an actor to have something as a home base to come back to.

Curtis Bonds Baker/Netflix

What’s it been like to play each other’s on-again, off-again love interests?

Maridueña: Getting to act alongside Mary Mouser over these past couple years has really been a pleasure. She was really the first one out of the younger cast who I was introduced to. Obviously, now there's so many of us, but she was really my point of contact when it came to this new storyline that they were trying to push with Cobra Kai.

Mouser: I knew I was coming into the show to be Ralph [Macchio]'s daughter, but I was also coming into the show to be Miguel's love interest. That was such a pillar for me to know the character through that lens. It feels very grounding, her relationship with Miguel.

Will we ever see Sam get back with Robby, or is that out of the picture?

Mouser: I think it's a fun idea. I'm curious about people's take on that in general. I love Sam with Robby, and I love Sam with Miguel. There are two different versions of her that she gets to experience and I have a lot of fun getting to be both of those versions. It's the way you are with your best friends, these people in your life that have known you at different points and you can let out different sides of yourself. There's something fun about the way that Sam can be with Robby that she can't be with anybody else, but at the same time, I think Tory and Robby together is also really fun.

Speaking of which, Tory and Robby have also reconciled. What has their journey been like?

Peyton List: [Tory] started off talking to Miguel in Season 2. I think if he told Tory that she and Robby would've ended up together, she would've never believed it. After Robby goes to juvie and gets out, Tory sees that they have more in common because they both come from hard backgrounds. That's really what brought them together. Tory saw a lot of herself in Robby and pushed him in a way that I think no one else really could.

In Season 5, he wants her to leave Cobra Kai and she doesn't want to. That breaks them up because her loyalty at the end of the day is to Cobra Kai. At the end of the season, I think that they get to the best place Tory's ever been in a relationship, and now she’s able to communicate and be empathetic toward him, which I think is a really big step for Tory.

Robby Breaks Up with Tory | ‘Cobra Kai’ S5By defending Cobra Kai, you're part of the problem.

Tory and Sam also end their feud. Was it hard to hate each other for so long?

List: Yeah, it was almost like we've become closer now since filming Season 5. But before that, maybe subconsciously we weren't getting as close because it's easier to hate someone when you don't know them too well. We didn't really have storylines together unless we were hating one another, but I think our feud is so fun for us to play.

Mouser: We joke about it. The more we got to hang out and the more we got to know each other, we did karaoke together and have all these memories and experiences. Then we're like, “Oh man, now it's even harder to fake hate you.”

Another twist that fans will be shocked by is Miguel and Robby becoming a literal family with Johnny and Carmen’s baby on the way. Xolo, what was your reaction after reading that in the script for the first time?

Maridueña: What a breath of relief it was. Inherently with these characters, there's so much teen angst that comes into it. You're playing a 16- or 17-year-old for five years and there's so much drama. Now we’re able to close that chapter of Miguel and Robby because it was so much friction. You have these two young men who are yearning for these fatherly figures and they find them in different places — that’s caused a lot of tension.

Miguel and Robby’s fight in particular was, personally speaking, the best one of the season. It was just a blast filming with Tanner and he has so much knowledge and charisma and ability when it comes to being on camera. It's great to have a moment where it's just the two of us. For a lot of the other fights in our show, it's the two of us fighting alongside 30 other teenage kids in a school. It's nice to have it be broken down to its simplest form. And we saw who the better fighter was... I'm just kidding. He would whoop my ass any day of the week, but it was a really great time.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.