Cobra Kai Recap: My Right Foot

This is close to the end, so let’s take a second to marvel at what exactly the Cobra Kai creators have accomplished here. Yes, this is a supremely silly show, and maybe my recaps do have a tendency to “treat the show as if it’s Shakespeare,” as a commenter said in season four. But it’s fun every once in a while to look back and remember what it is we’re watching. How many tiny characters or micro-moments from the original Karate Kid and its mostly crappy sequels have been repurposed or expanded for this sequel series 40 years later?

I thought about this during the Kreese scenes this week. He hasn’t been the most consistent character over these six seasons — some of his scenes and story lines take themselves too seriously, especially in the many somber flashbacks to his younger self — but he has become a far deeper character than that hammy ’80s villain version. Here, he’s making a genuine attempt to apologize to the students he failed: first Tory, whom he treated like a “soldier in his own private war,” then Johnny, whom he forced to carry his trauma and bitterness for the past 35 years.

This whole show, really, is built around the disturbing moment at the end of The Karate Kid when Kreese chokes Johnny out after he loses the All Valley to Daniel. That scene in the parking lot explains the wild hook of Cobra Kai: an underdog arc for a grown-up, alcoholic Johnny Lawrence who’s still holding on to that loss and haunted by the emotional (and, at least in that encounter, physical) abuse of a cruel sensei. When Kreese brings it up now, out in the same parking lot where it first happened, you can feel the history between the two characters and the performers.

But their later conversation after the boys’ semifinals is what feels like a true culmination. Johnny has told off Kreese plenty of times in this show, but only now does he get truly vulnerable, breaking down in tears as he explains the effect his mentor has had on him all these years. (William Zabka is better than ever.) That moment out in the parking lot was the worst of his life, and it taught him all the wrong lessons. Without Kreese, he would have been a good sport about losing; as Kreese himself mentions, the kid’s original response was to say, “You’re all right, LaRusso.” The real turning point that determined Johnny’s future perspective was the confrontation with Kreese outside, which destroyed his trust in himself and in other people.

We’ll get to that ending with Johnny returning to Cobra Kai, but we should start with the tournament itself. Following another explanation of the rules and a moment of silence for Kwon, Robby and Axel face off and finish their fight. Robby is at a disadvantage here, especially with Axel whipping out all these new moves he didn’t prep for, but he eventually manages to close the gap a bit. At Sensei Wolf’s instruction and with Silver’s nod of approval, Axel goes with the nuclear option: simply breaking his opponent’s leg.

We’ve seen moments like this on the show before, and at this point, they’re not quite as jaw-dropping as they used to be. But that doesn’t mean it’s pleasant to watch Robby screaming there on the mat, forced to take the L while the ref refuses to disqualify the obvious offender. After all this, though, Robby has a surprisingly bright outlook. After all, karate got him everything he has. Maybe the world will never know he could have won, but he does and that’ll have to be enough.

When Robby bested Miguel and became a captain earlier this season, I thought it might be his time to shine and finally win a tournament. But in many ways, this conclusion is truer to his arc: Robby is super-talented and may even be one of the best alive, but he’s just not destined to win. In a way, giving him yet another loss and forcing him to deal with that is more thoughtful and satisfying than just letting him win to balance the scales.

Sam’s fight isn’t until tomorrow, but she’s reckoning with some of the same issues from a different angle. With Robby out, the points deferential makes it virtually impossible for Miyagi-Do to win the Sekai Taikai. If she’s not fighting for her dojo, and she’s not invested in crushing Tory anymore, what is she even fighting for? Her dad doesn’t have any pep talk prepared this time; he’s still preoccupied with his own Miyagi demons, as represented by that nightmare where he’s attacked by men in skeleton outfits.

Daniel does make some serious progress in getting past those demons, though, when AI Mr. Miyagi shows up in the dream to kick some ass and offer some wisdom. Again, I feel pretty weird about seeing Pat Morita and his iconic character resurrected in this form; beyond questions of ethics, it’s just distracting and shimmery and strange, and it detracts from what should be a big character moment. Daniel has been wrestling with his feelings about his legendary sensei for six seasons now, and he never needed a direct dream confrontation with the guy in the past. I would have rather seen him work this out alone or with someone else who knew Miyagi — even with a younger version of the sensei himself if we had to do a dream conversation.

Setting that aside, it’s good to see Daniel remember that Miyagi-Do is supposed to be about avoiding a fight, not just winning one. That lesson comes at the perfect time because Sam has decided to step down and let Tory face off against Zara in the finals. Father and daughter have both made peace with a Miyagi-Do loss. That leaves Johnny, who isn’t as happy to just sit back. He needs this, and his sense of need feels much more real than his co-sensei’s.

So with Daniel’s apparent approval, he hops over to Cobra Kai, entering Miguel as the replacement for Kwon in the finals. Now, I’ll say this: I absolutely see where Wolf is coming from when he says “This is bullshit. How can they do that?” It’s pretty ridiculous that the finalists’ dojos can basically swap competitors and coaches at will. But it does make a degree of sense that Johnny’s and Miguel’s previous time at Cobra Kai makes them eligible, at least according to Cobra Kai logic, especially with Kreese’s approval.

Besides, Cobra Kai, Miyagi-Do, and Eagle Fang have been swapping students (and sensei) since the beginning, so it really shouldn’t be a surprise that the show is changing things up one last time — or that it’s setting up one final act of reclamation for the titular dojo. Miguel standing there in that black gi, with Johnny locked in behind him, is a full-circle moment, a throwback to season one and a return to its most lovable sensei-student duo. Cobra Kai is all about looking back, really, about history repeating itself, and it’s fitting to stick with that theme through the end.

Mr. Miyagi’s Little Trees

• I wondered if we would get any more Karate Kid cameos, and we do! The guest referee for the Sekai Taikai is Darryl Vidal (played by the actor and martial artist of the same name), the other semifinalist whose ass Johnny kicks during the All Valley in the first movie. A tiny role, but it’s fun to see the show’s continued dedication to bringing back every character possible.

• Terry Silver has six months to live, max, and he is not handling it well.

• Wolf’s slapping Axel is a clear parallel to Kreese and Johnny, but we hope he’ll be able to wriggle out of his sensei’s grasp before he does something that will haunt him forever (if he hasn’t already).

• It’s good to see Chris and Mitch watching the semifinals, but otherwise we haven’t seen many of the kid characters in these last episodes. (Devon and Anthony are in the audience too, but it’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it.) I know Kenny’s, Devon’s, and Anthony’s stories are pretty much done, but it would be nice to see the whole class together sometime in the final episodes, even if they’re not celebrating a Miyagi-Do win.