Villainess Blown Opportunity: What Happened to Aunt Kandace?!

On February 13, 2025, Cobra Kai--the long overdue follow-up series to the Karate Kid films--ended its run after six seasons in seven years on YouTube and Netflix. The series remains a big hit and an immense favorite by many fans (myself included) and the end stretch saw quite a few things resolved. There was some heartbreak, there were some tender moments, and there was a magnificent finish to a very long redemption arc. In all, everything was tied up in a neat little package.

Well... not everything. There's one thing that I can't help but ask: Where the hell was Aunt Kandace?!

If you're asking, "Who?," I don't blame you. But let's dive in, shall we?

Despite my past statement, a number of Cobra Kai fans (especially the attentive ones) know who I'm talking about. Kandace was the aunt of Tory Nichols, and she briefly appeared in "Kicks Get Chicks," the sixth episode of Season Four. She confronts Tory regarding disability checks for Tory's mother (Kandace's sister), Grace, with Tory refusing to give her greedy aunt a dime. The scene does reveal that Grace has been ill for some time, and as it also establishes, Kandace can't wait to collect should that day come and Grace passes on. Kandace's callousness also includes voicing her plan to take sole custody of Tory's younger brother, Brandon, for monetary gain, saying that she'll easily win due to Tory's criminal record--even though Kandace has one of her own.

From that point on, I definitely expected Kandace to be a recurring villainess on the series. She didn't appear for the rest of Season Four, and while I didn't really expect her in Season Five, I did have my hopes for Kandace to appear during Season Six, especially since the last episode of Part 1 of the final season saw Grace, sadly, pass on. Even then, we didn't see her for the rest of the series. This was a massive blown opportunity. With Grace's passing, the custody battle definitely would have been on, and we could have seen Kandace as a full-blown villainess against Tory in this feud, resorting to all sorts of immoral and even illegal means to get what she wants. Maybe we could have seen Tory result to going Cobra Kai on her evil aunt. That would have been epic.

Cobra Kai's fourth season hit Netflix on New Year's Eve--December 31, 2021. Regarding the evil Aunt Kandace, she was played by Rebecca Lines, who was terrific in this role. It was way too brief for my liking, but even for a brief moment, Kandace definitely served an important purpose. In wrestling, one way to turn a heel into a babyface is to put an even worse heel against that person. At the time of the aforementioned episode, Tory Nichols had been on the heel side since her debut in Season Two, but it was after her encounter with Kandace that Tory's babyface turn begins, and it's solidified in Season Five. Kandace served as that heel who increased the sympathy towards Tory, and led Tory to become more heroic for the remainder of the series. Even so, it would have been nice if we saw more of Kandace against Tory, because we would have seen Tory really stand up and fight against the depths of Kandace's heel persona.

As I stated before, Rebecca Lines was terrific as Aunt Kandace; she played Kandace's callousness and criminal greed to absolute perfection. Lines has done quite a bit in her career, which actually includes playing an MCU villainess! Nine months prior to her Cobra Kai appearance airing on Netflix, Lines was shown in the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier as the evil Senator Atwood, who was briefly introduced and shown as a villainess in league with HYDRA. So yeah, Rebecca Lines played two amazing villainesses with a grand combined total of about three minutes of airtime, yet both were delicious when they were on. All of this has me hoping that Lines plays a big bad with a huge spotlight, I just know she'd shine.

So yeah, we were definitely robbed of the opportunity of having Aunt Kandace appear as a recurring villainess plaguing Tory, which would have been one hell of a storyline. Even so, I did like what I saw from Kandace in her one appearance; it was fantastic!