Summary
New alliances are formed, second chances are given, and people begin to find their way in “The Moment of Truth”.
This Cobra Kai Season 2 Episode 4 recap for the episode titled “The Moment of Truth” contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
The moment of truth came early for Demetri (Gianni Decenzo). The gangly, socially-clueless teenager has wanted to learn karate for a while now; his best friends Miguel and Hawk both train at Cobra Kai, but that place isn’t for him. And it was confirmed when he arrived at the dojo after hours, idiotically believing Kreese to a be a less psychotic, more amenable alternative to Johnny. After attempting to lay down the law and criticizing Kreese’s tattoo, he leaves with a bloodied nose.
Turning to Hawk for support, Demetri doesn’t find much sympathy. “You know what snitches get,” he says. “They get immunity,” replies Demetri. Hawk is evidently fond of Kreese’s attitude and his clearly made-up story about fighting in Mogadishu in the 90s, but Miguel — whose knows that Mogadishu is in Somalia, and not Rwanda as Kreese suggests — recognizes he’s lying through his teeth and takes his concerns to Johnny. Johnny initially defends him, but when he interrupts him during a… suspect conversation, his curiosity is piqued.
Following Kreese, Johnny learns that he has been homeless for the last ten years. After Cobra Kai shut down, he was lost and aimless, refusing to take a job offered by “an old war buddy” because he feared it was a hand-out and denied re-enlistment due to failing the psychological evaluation. All his stories were, unsurprisingly, false. But he sees Cobra Kai’s recent success at the All-Valley Championships as a second chance at redemption, which Johnny is willing to give him, just so long as he agrees to do things Johnny’s way. Will he? Of course not! As the episode ends with Kreese taking over a demonstration, he says explicitly, “Just as they let their guard down, that’s when you strike the hardest.” Subtle!
Anyway, there are other things afoot in “The Moment of Truth”. Robbie and Sam are curious as to why Cobra Kai is more popular than Miyagi-Do; Robbie reasons it’s that the former prizes offense, which looks more appealing, whereas the latter is all about karate as a means of self-defense. Daniel uses a story about his first job selling cars as an analogy for why Miyagi-Do has to maintain it’s truth and authenticity, which is more meaningful and long-lasting than flashy lights and gimmicks. Thus, he takes the kids on a recruitment drive to the local beach club, where he can schmooze the well-to-do parents.
Cobra Kai, meanwhile, has a new recruit: Tory, with a “Y”, who takes on Miguel during her first session and wins with the sneaky underhanded tactics that Kreese loves so much. Seeing a potential ally in her, Aisha asks if she’ll accompany her to the beach club, where her surprisingly smoking-hot mother is undermining Daniel’s efforts at promoting Miyagi-Do by showing off footage of the Cobra Kai demonstration at Valley Fest. Sam, trying to make amends with Aisha, obviously clashes with Tory, who is nicking bottles of vodka and just generally being a sassy tearaway. When Amanda’s wallet goes missing, Sam accuses Tory, who throws her through a table full of cakes.
The wallet is missing because Robbie’s old pals from Season 1 spend the summer there nabbing wallets and stashing them on the beach. (The management tries to eject Robbie earlier in “The Moment of Truth”, but Amanda defends him.) Robbie comes up with the bright idea of filming himself beating up his old friends, but he’s jumped by their newest recruit, a big guy who seems much too old to be associating with teenagers. Luckily, Daniel intervenes just in time and whoops the attackers, which is all caught on film.
Of course, Daniel won’t use the footage on principle. Instead, he echoes the sentiments shared with him by a random fisherman he conveniently encountered on the beach: If you’re offering something worthwhile, the bites will come eventually. And they do in “The Moment of Truth”, just as Daniel is explaining that he’s content to be patient and wait for the people who need them. Enter Demetri. Miyagi-Do has another recruit.
