There’s a slew of reasons why Cobra Kai is a very special series, but after being lucky enough to chat with the cast and creators for five seasons, one particular thing stands out — the Cobra Kai company is packed with people who understand these characters and are deeply dedicated to doing whatever they can to make their journeys stronger and stronger along the way.

Mary Mouser made her first appearance on Collider Ladies Night back in August 2020. That was just after news broke that the series would be moving over to Netflix and just before Season 3 debuted on the streamer. A lot has happened since, both for Mouser herself and for Samantha LaRusso, and that’s exactly what we’re digging into during Mouser’s return to Collider Ladies Night — in person!

During a round of Dicey Questions, Mouser highlighted, “Our writers are incredible at adapting and writing to these characters that we’ve probably all co-created at this point.” She continued, “I get to have a say, which is a really cool thing as a young actor to be taken seriously.” A cool thing indeed. A cool thing for Sam who gets a stronger arc courtesy of that collaboration and a cool thing for Mouser herself who’s getting the opportunity to establish a foundation for herself in this industry with such a creatively fulfilling project.

When we hit the main portion of the interview, I had to follow up and ask Mouser for the very first time she realized her input and her voice were being heard in a way that really mattered. “It's a very definitive moment.” She went on to recap the Season 1, Episode 9 fight at the beach party during which Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) accidentally hit Sam instead of Robby (Tanner Buchanan). That encounter would need to be addressed in the Season 1 finale and it was of the utmost importance to Mouser that the severity of Miguel’s actions was recognized. She explained:

“I know definitively that the scene at the tournament where Sam and Miguel have a little moment when he says, ‘Just watch what I do to your boyfriend out there,’ or whatever, like, ‘Watch what I do to Robby,’ that was originally a very different scene where Sam kind of came up in tears and talked to Miguel and was like, ‘I forgive you.’ And I had a big issue with that. I see what they were doing with it and it could have been a really cool version of it, but I just had this issue with the idea of the forgiveness happening that quickly without the conversation beforehand. I was like, I feel like we should see that conversation rather than having it be an internal conversation for her. And the guys were like, ‘Yeah, well, come to us with what you think.’ So Xolo and I went over and sat down on the benches at the tournament with a pencil and the pages of the script and went through and we were like, ‘Well, what’s a version of this that we could say feels like [it] gets this message across?’ And we went back to them with it, and obviously they took it and made it beautiful because that's what they do ... and they were like, ‘Are you happy with this?’ 'Yeah, absolutely,’ and I got to have that moment of having a conversation of what felt to me like making him own it a little more and getting to see that conversation for Samantha so that later, when they did kind of reconcile and come back together, that it made more sense.”

[Editor's note: The rest of this article contains spoilers for Cobra Kai Season 5.] That level of understanding of her character’s headspace continues to get stronger and stronger as the series progresses, contributing to the fact that Cobra Kai is a show that delivers on multiple levels. Yes, it’s a good time with a roster of hugely charming main players, but those characters also face meaningful human challenges, and oftentimes, those challenges are tangled together in a very grounded manner. That was certainly the case for Sam in Season 5, and it’s something that’s especially evident at the end of Episode 8.

At that point, a solution finally presents itself for one of the many concerns Sam’s been juggling throughout the series, her rivalry with Tory (Peyton List). Tory decides it’s finally time to come clean and reveal the truth behind her tournament win and what she’s been up to with Kreese (Martin Kove). Whereas it might seem like the perfect opportunity for her and Sam to reconcile, Sam doesn’t respond with the understanding Tory was likely hoping for. While that may be frustrating for anyone out there eager to see a Sam and Tory team-up, Sam’s response well reflects the messiness of life and how challenging it can be to take a step back and see how all of one’s struggles are connected. Mouser explained:

“I think it's human nature to have feelings like that. And again, yes, she's a teenage girl, like you said; that's the reality of the situation. I don't think I would have had the zoom out lens ability to see how all of these actions play together. And also, I totally can say there's better ways to handle so many of the situations that Sam handles, that anybody handles. We all learn that. That's human nature. We make mistakes. We learn from them. That’s how you get better. Sometimes you are able to see somebody else make a mistake and learn from it, and hopefully not make that mistake yourself, but a lot of times, at least for me, it's trial and error.”

Not only is there a significant amount of history between Sam and Tory, but Sam also just saw Miguel kissing another girl, she was just coming off of a high-pressure fight at the dojo, and then some. Mouser continued:

"These are all these things that have huge, big pent-up energy. It's like when you gear yourself up for a big argument with somebody and then you go to talk to them and they're like, ‘Yeah, I understand your point.’ And you're like, ‘Well, good. But also, I gotta find something else to be mad about because I'm human and I have all this anger inside of me.’ Seeing Miguel struck the match, but the flame was already waiting to burn for Sam all day. And then realizing that Tory knew this and didn't do anything about it. Again, not defending Sam's actions, but for me, in that moment, what all of that came up for really comes down to so much more than being angry about a boy.”

That care and attention to detail extends to Sam and Tory’s next Season 5 encounter in Episode 9 when Sam visits Tory at home. Mouser noted, “Every piece of that was so thought out by our incredible writers, our directors.” The writers and directors apply that level of care to everything they do in the show, but Mouser likened this particular scene to when Johnny (William Zabka) and Daniel (Ralph Macchio) fight on the sparring deck in Season 4. “There was such reverence about that, knowing that these were two people coming together that were gonna duke it out that it was like, this is what everybody's been waiting for." The equivalent of that scene for Mouser's Sam? Her Episode 9 conversation with Tory.

The conversation itself is hugely impactful and a major game changer for the characters moving forward, but if you’re looking for even more insight into how the two feel at that moment, you might want to pay attention to how they’re positioned. Here’s what Mouser said about why it felt right to have Sam standing rather than taking a seat next to Tory on the couch:

“For me, the staying standing is very much about staying in a defensive concept, but also, in a way, it's offensive. And it kind of is the first time we see this vulnerable side of Tory coming out, where I feel like I got to have that in Season 3 with Sam where I got to really dig into the crying and stuff like that. And obviously Tory has those incredible moments, but Sam doesn't get to see them and it was kind of the first moment where I got to — I literally was talking to Peyton about this the other day where it was almost like super emotional when they said action for the first time and I walked in there and I looked down and I saw her with the bloody knuckles and the ice on her hand and she just looked up at me and I had this moment of like, ‘Oh my god, something doesn't feel right. I shouldn't be here.’ I felt like I was intruding on this very personal part of her life and it made me question all this anger that I had towards her and all these things that, as a character but [also] as an actor, it was a really fun experience to get to have that lack of leveling in the physicality but this leveling of what felt like, for Sam, being like, ‘Okay, I can sort of start to let my guard down because I see her so with our guard down.’”

Eager to hear more from Mouser on Cobra Kai Season 5 and her evolution in the industry thus far? We’ve got you well covered in that department! You can watch her episode of Collider Ladies Night at the top of this article or you can listen to our full 40-minute interview uncut in podcast form below: