Cobra Kai always impresses; plenty is on the line in Season 4. Johnny and Daniel must put aside their differences to defeat Cobra Kai at the All-Valley Tournament. Taking on the new threat, Kreese recruits old friend Terry Silver, but this brings further alliances and enemies.
With so much to chew on, I’ve broken down all the key moments in Season 4 into a comprehensive but easily digestible recap.
Episode 1 – “Let’s Begin”
The essential, central relationship of Cobra Kai has always been the one between Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, but one of its most enduring characteristics is that they can’t get on. They’re incompatible. They see the world, people, and karate totally differently. So, given the lovely ending of the third season that saw them unite Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang for the greater good, it’s no surprise really that the fourth season premiere, “Let’s Begin,” devotes a lot of time to them figuring out that their new alliance isn’t going to go as smoothly as they first thought.
Amongst all of this, we’re also catching up with the state of the various dojos and their students. Things aren’t looking good for Cobra Kai, for instance, since half of the previous students have quit, but Tory and Kyler are still holding down the fort, and Robby is seeming to be a likely candidate, despite some initial reticence. But with Johnny and Daniel having teamed up, Kreese decides that he, too, needs an ally and attempts to reunite with an old one — Terry Silver.
So, for the uninitiated, Silver was Kreese’s rich psychopath buddy in The Karate Kid Part III, and he remains rich here in “Let’s Begin”, though he seems to have the whole psychopathy thing under control. He’s living a swanky New Age life with a vegan girlfriend and makes a point of reminding Kreese how ridiculous it was that he spent so long terrorizing a teenage boy.
It’s a conversation that shows why Cobra Kai has been successful; it’s a continuation of a story that refuses to pretend the three intervening decades didn’t happen. Terry is older, has made something of himself, and isn’t interested in returning to his old ways. We’re reminded, too, that Cobra Kai was initially founded as a response to public sentiment around American servicemen following Vietnam. Times have changed.
Little has changed with Johnny, though. He’s still attempting to be progressive — he makes Miguel’s family fajitas, despite them being Ecuadorian — and progress things with Carmen, which proves a bit more difficult when Miguel, who doesn’t know about their relationship, let’s slip about Johnny’s meeting with Ali. He’s obsessed with being more macho than Daniel, even at the expense of the students — especially Hawk, whom he’s determined to punish, despite him having switched sides — and can only really relate to the dynamic as a re-do of Rocky and Apollo teaming up in Rocky III. It’s a funny idea, but it’s also a bit depressing to see a man suffering from such arrested development trying to figure out how to do what’s best for kids that he genuinely loves but doesn’t know how to relate to.
Of course, it’s the kids who come through in the end, with Hawk leading the charge in building an Okinawan sparring deck from a painting he saw in the Miyagi-Do dojo, and that brings the team together as one rather than two divided units training independently. It seems, though, that they’ll need to become that united front in order to take on Cobra Kai, especially since Robby is intent on teaching them the deeply held secrets of Miyagi-Do’s defensive style. You have to know your enemy, after all.
And since Terry Silver seems to know Kreese better than anyone, it isn’t much of a surprise that he seems to make the decision to follow him as the episode ends.
Episode 2 – “First Learn Stand”
“First Learn Stand” begins by introducing a new character, a kid named Kenny who plays an online game called Dungeon Lord and dances while waiting for the school bus, and then introducing the kid who leads the charge in bullying him — Anthony LaRusso.
Thus far, so much attention has been given to Sam LaRusso that it was easy to forget that Anthony even existed — as a matter of fact I didn’t recognize him at first, and just wrote him off as another generic school bully. But when the penny dropped, it was a kick-yourself moment. Of course, with all the focus on Sam, Anthony would have grown up feeling resentful. Of course, he would rebel against his dad’s most essential tenets of tolerance, understanding, and respect. It only makes sense.
We don’t know much about Kenny. He’s alone a lot — his dad is in the army, and his mom is always at work. Something “happened” to his brother; initially, we’re kept in the dark about it, but at the end of the episode, we learn he’s in juvie. Kenny is more a useful narrative tool than an actual character at this stage. He’s an excuse for Anthony to embrace the worst aspects of himself, and later, he becomes relevant in another way, though we’ll discuss that when we come to it. But he doesn’t have much value on his own terms. He’s a mirror for other characters and their issues.
He’s likable, though. You can see why the resident’s pretty girl, Lia, would be interested in him, why Anthony would be jealous of him, and how those two things might come together in a cruel prank. Anthony and his friends con Kenny into meeting with “Lia” in full Dungeon Lord cosplay, and when he retaliates to their abuse, they beat him.
This is a pretty direct mirror of the scene in the first film when Daniel is pursued by Johnny and the rest of Cobra Kai, who are all dressed as skeletons. Here, the victim is in costume, but the attacker is the LaRusso. It’s a nice way for Cobra Kai to play on its own history.
Elsewhere, Johnny and Daniel continue to bicker and decide to teach each other their styles in order to foster respect and understanding, though it’s mostly played for laughs. It culminates in Johnny taking Daniel to a hockey game and antagonizing the players to try and get him into a fight. Eventually, Daniel loses his temper when the team insults Amanda, and he whoops all of them handily. Lesson learned, I suppose — sometimes, striking first isn’t just necessary but ideal.
Speaking of Amanda, she gets a subplot of her own in “First Learn Stand” as she begins to strike up a somewhat unlikely relationship with Tory. It begins as a threat of prison if she doesn’t leave Sam alone, but when the encounter inadvertently gets Tory fired, she begins to feel remorseful. After Tory lashes out at the dojo and tells Kreese what happened, he, in turn, tells Amanda a little about Tory’s backstory, how she’s the sole provider for her family, and Amanda tries to make amends by leaving a basket of food on Tory’s doorstep.
It’s a nice gesture, but it isn’t particularly well thought out, and Tory is offended by the pity. Despite her making a scene, though, it’s clear that there’s something interesting brewing between these two.
Episode 3 – “Then Learn Fly”
“Then Learn Fly” has a predictable structure. After a couple of episodes depicting Daniel and Johnny trying and failing to get on the same page and work together, here we see them finally start to gel… and then realize that the whole thing isn’t going to work after all. But it’s still impressive how the half-hour gets to that point, how neatly and organically it nurtures the right relationships to sell the idea on.
Miguel, who has never known his biological father, sees his burgeoning relationship with Daniel as getting two for the price of one. But Johnny, who has ruined his relationship with his biological son, is terrified of losing his connection to Miguel. Disagreeing over karate styles is one thing. But some differences are much harder to reconcile.
It is satisfying to see Daniel and Johnny getting on, though. They both take the opposing dojo’s kids out for a lesson, and their plans are comically on-brand. Daniel wants the Eagle Fang kids to catch koi fish with their bare hands. Johnny wants the Miyagi-Do students to jump between rooftops with nothing but a pile of dirty mattresses in the alleyway below them. It’s an attempt to sway the kids to other ways of thinking about and doing things, and some respond to the lessons better than others (Miguel thinks outside the box to trap the fish; Sam plucks up the courage to leap between the rooftops.)
The point is, though, that it all seems to be working, fostering an environment of togetherness and understanding. It’s outside of karate where the real issues begin to arise. In an early dinner conversation, we learn that Miguel’s educational aspirations are probably going to be limited by his socioeconomic status, and later, he’s reluctant to accept help from Daniel when Carmen’s car breaks down because he’s worried that his sensei will think he’s not good enough for Sam. Of course, Daniel can relate since he comes from very similar circumstances, which he relates to Miguel while teaching him to fix cars and drive. When Johnny eventually sees the closeness between these two at the end of the episode, it’s like all of his worst fears coming true at once — Daniel can relate to Miguel in ways he can’t.
“Then Learn Fly” also spares some time for Silver, who is having Vietnam flashbacks of his promises to Kreese (their time at war was detailed in the previous season). Their relationship is obviously complex and traumatic. When Terry turns up at the dojo, he confronts Kreese about dredging up the past and “messing with his head”.
But as the episode progresses and Silver has more flashbacks, to him and Kreese getting matching Cobra Kai tattoos and discussing him putting the dojo ahead of inheriting the family business, present-day Silver ends up symbolically tying his hair into a ponytail. We all know what that means.
And then there’s Kenny. He goes to Cobra Kai on the recommendation of his brother, who knew Robby in juvie. Kreese throws him in at the deep end, which Kenny doesn’t take to, and he quickly leaves. By following the address in the bag he left behind, though, Robby is able to find him at home. After seeing videos of Anthony and his friends tormenting Kenny, Robby agrees to “show him a few moves”. Eventually, Kenny returns to Cobra Kai and, with Robby’s endorsement and after socking Kyler in the mouth, Kreese gives him a spot.
Image from ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 4, Episode 3 (Credit – Netflix)
Episode 4 – “Bicephaly”
“Bicephaly” means “the condition of having two heads,” which, rumor has it, is better than having just one. But what if those heads don’t get along? What if they have fundamental, seemingly irreconcilable differences about karate, manhood, and life? What might the consequences of that be?
Well, for Johnny, it means he can’t get it up when he’s in bed with Carmen. Among other things, obviously.
This episode is a reminder that you can be guilty by association. When Kenny is taken on a tour of the high school (he’s a middle-schooler in the same facility, which now has measures to prevent further karate battles in the halls), he’s harassed in the bathroom for wearing a Cobra Kai shirt. Hawk intervenes, but he warns Kenny to get out of Cobra Kai while he can, and he isn’t especially friendly about it. When Kenny tells the rest of the dojo about the incident, they naturally want payback. Seemingly right on cue, Kreese introduces Silver to the rest of the class.
One of the first things Silver does as part of Cobra Kai is antagonize Robby and rough him up a little. It’s obvious he has ulterior motives in everything he does, and one of them is convincing Robby to face and control his fears. That includes, it turns out, going to see Johnny. He warns his dad to warn Hawk to leave Kenny alone, or there will be consequences. One assumes there’ll be consequences anyway, of course, but it’s the thought that counts.
“Bicephaly” also continues the burgeoning relationship between Tory and Amanda LaRusso. It begins when Tory gets a new job, which it turns out is playing a scantily-clad mermaid at a kids’ party that Sam happens to be attending. Now, I have some thoughts about the way Cobra Kai sexualizes Tory — and Robby, to a certain extent, but not to the same degree — and none of the other characters; she even has a form-fitting Cobra Kai training outfit that none of the other students have.
I don’t think it’s malicious, but I do think it perpetuates an unfortunate relationship between underprivileged young women and their sexuality. But let’s not get preachy. Either way, Sam spends the whole party tormenting Tory until she eventually storms out, and Amanda follows her outside to try and connect with her again. It still isn’t entirely successful but the attempt doesn’t go unnoticed.
Another big theme of the episode is Johnny’s annoyance with how Miguel and Daniel are bonding. We’re even treated to some flashbacks of Johnny as a little kid, his mum telling him that he has “a new daddy”, which has got to be the absolute worst way of presenting a new relationship to a young child. It isn’t difficult to see where Johnny’s warped views about parenting come from and how he inevitably ruined his own relationship with Robby because of them.
At the same time, Daniel talks to Miguel about how Mr. Miyagi fulfilled the dad role for him. It’s interesting because, in the first movie, Johnny Lawrence was a rich kid. He would be considered privileged by almost any standards. But Daniel, who grew up with a single mother, actually had a much more stable and healthy male relationship in his life thanks to Mr. Miyagi. When Johnny went looking for that role model, he found Kreese, and we know what happened there. All these similarities amongst the backstories of various core characters give Cobra Kai a lot of welcome texture.
Things come to a head in “Bicephaly” at a drive-in where both dojos are watching the Jean-Claude Van Damme classic Bloodsport. Kenny is still being mildly hazed by Kyler, who sends him to collect more food than he can comfortably carry, and Hawk rather unnecessarily makes him drop it all. Predictably, a confrontation erupts between the two dojos, and they agree to meet in 30 minutes and fight (all while Bloodsport plays in the background). But this turns out to be a set-up by Miguel, as he and the rest of Miyagi-Do watch Cobra Kai get soaked by the sprinklers.
Miyagi-Do are very pleased about this, including Daniel, who sees the action as Miguel embracing his teachings. But Johnny, understandably, thinks it was a bad idea; that Cobra Kai won’t let the slight go unanswered. And he’s right since, at that moment, Kreese and Silver arrive.
Episode 5 – “Match Point”
“Match Point” wastes little time in picking up right where it left off in the previous episode, with Kreese and Silver confronting Daniel and Johnny in the Miyagi-Do dojo. It’s a tense encounter, but it doesn’t escalate, though Kreese does plant the seed about Johnny playing second fiddle to his old rival, which has to sting given his current feelings about Daniel’s relationship with Miguel. It’s really the catalyst for a major rupture in their relationship, as the division between them continues to widen throughout the episode, culminating in an encounter that it’ll be difficult to come back from.
But there’s also division growing between Kreese and Silver, although it’s more subtle. After the opening encounter, they return to the Cobra Kai dojo, and Silver cautions the kids against fighting, instead advising them to store all their anger and use it later. Kreese is visibly unconvinced. He sees a sneaky, manipulative undercurrent in Silver that Daniel also sees and tries to explain to Johnny.
He’s convinced that Silver is still a psychopath and that his presence is a considerable threat to them, so he insists on taking over the training, given that Miyagi-Do is better suited to counter him. Of course, Johnny doesn’t take this well and proposes that he and Daniel fight in a first-to-three tournament-style match to determine who takes over.
This is obviously a major dramatic moment, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the brilliant joke of Johnny slamming his cash down on the bar during his emphatic exit. It turns out to only be three dollars, and Daniel has to put his drinks on his tab.
Anyway, “Match Point” sees this development immediately spread among the students, since Johnny, drunk, went on a Twitter rant announcing the match (“Hash brown dead meat.”) Daniel wakes up with a hangover and regrets the whole thing, mistakenly believing that Johnny will want to sweep it under the rug, but nope, he’s actually having a Rocky III-style training montage complete with flashbacks to all of his negative encounters with Daniel.
Of course, Daniel is in the wrong here, and I’m glad that both Amanda and Sam tell him so — the latter, particularly, wants to learn both styles and is adamant there’s room for both, and she’s right. Miguel also cautions Johnny that he doesn’t want to stop learning Miyagi-Do. It’s the same sentiment being expressed on both sides of the fence, but both Daniel and Johnny are too stubborn to give any ground to the other. The fight will be going ahead.
Before that, though, the Cobra Kai students decide to take non-violent revenge on Miyagi-Do by ambushing Hawk at the tattoo parlor, attacking him, and forcibly shaving his head with a straight razor. Not exactly my idea of “non-violent”, but whatever. This is a pretty major turning point so it furthers the division between Daniel and Johnny more than the actual fight does.
The fight is fun, by the way — it includes flashbacks to the first movie, same stances, and everything, but it takes a little dramatic cop-out by building to a double-KO tie. But after Hawk reveals his new hairdo, Johnny wants revenge, and Daniel doesn’t, which causes them, as well as the Eagle Fang and Miyagi-Do students, to part ways. Sam, despite being a particularly strong advocate of Johnny’s point of view here, chooses to remain with her father. But the point is made. The alliance is over. And there are clearly going to be ramifications to the split.
Episode 6 – “Kicks Get Chicks”
With all the character drama that has been going on this season, it has been easy to forget that there’s a karate tournament on the horizon. But “Kicks Get Chicks” functions as a nice reminder. It opens with the All-Valley board having a meeting that includes lots of bickering, jokes, worrying about boys hitting girls being potentially perceived as problematic, and eventually, agreement to implement some dramatic new changes that’ll take them all into the future.
Daniel, who receives a letter outlining these changes, is happy with the inclusion of skill challenges and a separate girls division. Kreese and Terry, the latter of whom is splashing his cash on branding, are happy, too. But Johnny isn’t thrilled since Eagle Fang doesn’t have anyone to compete in the girls’ division. The title is starting to make sense now, isn’t it?
All this excitement doesn’t take away from the ongoing character drama, though. Tory is having a particularly bad time after running into her Aunty Kandace, an obviously spiteful golddigger who stands to benefit when Tory’s mother dies, so she turns to Amanda to secure a signature that’ll allow her back into school. Amanda, in exchange, recommends that she get some support from someone who isn’t karate-related and who can help her with her various problems.
Sam is, naturally, furious about all this, and Daniel isn’t thrilled either. But when Amanda opens up about her own past and how she might have very easily had her life ruined if she wasn’t lucky, she puts matters into a bit more perspective. She could just as easily have been Tory, and she sees herself in her.
Johnny and Miguel, meanwhile, are now reunited, and they hilariously attempt to recruit girls to Eagle Fang. This whole bit feels like a throwback to the early days of Cobra Kai when it was a fish-out-of-water comedy above all else. Moon recommends they go after the school’s best athlete, Piper, and Johnny feigns wokeness to recruit her, but he later learns that she and several others were enticed to Cobra Kai because of the swanky gear. At a loss, Johnny’s next plan is to dress Penis Breath up as a girl like in the 1992 movie Ladybugs, but luckily he inadvertently discovers “the most badass girl in the Valley” at a school debate just in time.
This stuff occupies most of “Kicks Get Chicks,” but the episode spares time for some incidental character-building scenes that are self-explanatory but worth making a note of. Hawk, for instance, is still feeling extremely sorry for himself about the whole hair debacle and thinks he deserved it. With his reputation ruined, he has decided not to return to Miyagi-Do or Eagle Fang — in fact, despite Demetri’s best efforts, he’s adamant about quitting karate completely. Of course, at the end of the episode, he returns to Miyagi-Do.
Sam also visits Aisha for advice on how to deal with the Tory situation, and it boils down to, essentially, using Johnny’s teachings socially. Aisha apparently approached her next potential bully and befriended her; Sam woefully misinterprets this advice and just outright threatens Tory when she returns to school.
Image from ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 4, Episode 6 (Credit – Netflix)
Episode 7 – “Minefields”
It has been a while since we checked in on the drama between Anthony LaRusso and Kenny, so “Minefields” starts there, with Anthony stealing Kenny’s clothes after gym class because he’s jealous of his relationship with Lia. Of course, Kenny wants revenge, even though Robby cautions him against it. Luckily for Kenny, this act of bullying triggers a chain of events that ultimately leads to Anthony’s behavior being exposed. Will that be enough to be considered appropriate payback, though?
So, what happens is that Daniel discovers Kenny’s stolen Cobra Kai hoody in Anthony’s room and assumes the worst — that Anthony has joined. Instead, he claims that a Cobra Kai has been harassing him at school, so Daniel takes him to train. Of course, he has him start by cleaning cars, and while Daniel’s at work, Anthony pays someone to clean them. Daniel is furious about this, and they have a nasty argument, but it leads to something of a breakthrough when he and Anthony have a conversation in the dojo, and the latter claims to have always felt out of the loop, given that he never really met Mr. Miyagi.
The other big subplot of the episode is Miguel, who finds Johnny’s bandanna in Carmen’s bedroom and is told that his sensei and his mother are dating. At first, he tries to brush this off, but with the cat out of the bag, Johnny starts giving him preferential treatment in training, and the whole thing drives Miguel nuts.
Eventually, Johnny has no choice but to do the thing he hates doing the most — actually be open about his feelings. He takes Miguel on a “field trip”, and tells him about his background, about his dad leaving and his mom moving on. He explains how he put all of his complicated feelings about father figures on Robby and now doesn’t know how to relate to Miguel. The whole chat goes well and leads directly into a training session that Sam also attends — they’re going to learn the tornado kick.
Over at Cobra Kai, a drill on finding an opponent’s weakness leads to more disagreement between Kreese and Silver. The latter thinks he knows the former’s weakness, which Kreese doesn’t like, and he also doesn’t like how Silver uses Robby’s feelings for Kenny to allow the younger boy to beat him.
This, in turn, has a knock-on effect on the Anthony situation. Kenny, emboldened by his training, antagonizes Anthony when he tries to apologize and lures him and his friends into the library, picking them off in the dark. Just as he’s about to assault Anthony, a teacher interrupts them, and Daniel and Amanda are called into school, where the principal shows them video proof that Anthony has been the aggressor all along.
At the end of “Minefields,” Kreese and Silver finally let their simmering tensions boil over into something resembling an outright confrontation. Kreese, still incensed about the weakness thing, reminds Silver of the cage in Vietnam and cautions him to fall in line.
Episode 8 – “Party Time”
Stingray has been on probation, annoying his neighbor, Greg, and he can’t wait to return to Cobra Kai. But his triumphant return is undermined somewhat by Kreese, who absolutely decimates him verbally. Admittedly, things are still tense between Kreese and Silver, and prom is on everyone’s minds, particularly Tory, who asks Robby to attend with her “strictly as a tactical move.” Silver likes the plan and assures them they’ll go in style.
Terry’s idea of style is to loan Robby a car to go to prom in, not to mention offering his mother, Shannon, a ton of cash, a place to live, and a job, all apparently for Robby’s sake. Shannon tells Johnny about this, and also that he needs to handle it. I’m happy she’s seeing through the ruse, but it doesn’t bode well for Johnny, who breaks into the Cobra Kai dojo to confront Silver, who is watching him on the cameras and taunting him over the phone.
Silver tells Johnny to visit a particular address in what is obviously a setup, and when he gets there, Silver jumps him, having dragged Kreese along to witness it. Silver’s plan, which he explains to Kreese, is to brutalize Johnny in order to shatter Miguel’s confidence, thus removing him as a potential obstacle in the upcoming tournament. Johnny — who you’ll notice employs some Miyagi-Do techniques — gets a whooping, but Kreese intervenes. He’d rather settle things in the tournament, which is uncharacteristic for him, but then again he has always had a soft spot where Johnny is concerned.
Elsewhere, prom doesn’t disappoint. Robby and Tory arrive like Barbie and Ken and show everyone up with their dancing and sexual chemistry, and both Sam and Miguel are so distracted by them that they can hardly enjoy their own evening. Stingray, not one to be upstaged, invites all the kids back to his for an afterparty, and of course, a fight breaks out there almost immediately between Robby, Miguel, Sam, and Tory. It’s Sam who starts it, and she and Miguel have an argument about it afterward. Talk about a love square.
While all this is going on, Anthony is paying the price for bullying Kenny, although both Daniel and Amanda are furious to discover he isn’t taking his punishment particularly seriously. They’re hardly cheered up when Vanessa tells them that they’re probably largely to blame for what’s going on with him mentally; his feeling of being alone, misunderstood and de-prioritized over his sister, left to essentially raise himself with the help of the internet and social media.
This is probably a very relevant and important issue for many parents for whom burgeoning technology has become a kind of unpaid babysitter and tutor, but in thematic terms, it’s really another manifestation of Daniel’s defensive mindset not always being the best one — when he really flips out at Anthony, that seems to get the message across.
Here’s where “Party Time” gets dark. First, Miguel goes to see Johnny after prom and finds him drunk on the floor of his apartment, licking his wounds. Miguel dutifully puts him to bed, and Johnny slurs about wanting to be a father to him and sucking at it. It’s a nice moment, especially when Miguel responds that he’s doing just fine and he loves him, but then Johnny says, “You too, Robby,” and it just stings so much, man.
Speaking of things that sting, Stingray goes back to Cobra Kai and finds a very drunk and increasingly unstable Terry Silver there, and as the episode comes to a close, Silver begins to savagely beat him.
Episode 9 – “The Fall”
And just like that, the Annual All-Valley Under-18 Karate Championship is underway. Because of the way that “The Fall” works, it doesn’t make all that much sense to recap it perfectly sequentially, so I’ll try and give a brief overview of the various brackets, the winners and losers, which subplots are really percolating, and where we stand thematically heading into the finale. Cool? Cool.
After a round of introductions for Miyagi-Do, Cobra Kai, and Eagle Fang, plus a lot of motivational speeches and “Yes, Sensei!”‘s all around, the skill challenges get underway. This is one of the new additions that the board insisted on, but in real-world terms, the round exists for two main reasons: one, to show off some fantastic choreography, and two, to make the point that Cobra Kai is a much more well-oiled machine than either of the other two relevant dojos.
Both Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang make some errors in their demonstrations. Cobra Kai doesn’t. This gives them an advantage going into the actual fighting stages since the winning dojo will be determined based on point totals across all categories at the end of the tournament. (I mention all this because it becomes important, dramatically.)
A cameo from Carrie Underwood gets the qualifiers started. This is a joke, essentially, since it was generally understood that the flesh-pressing, name-dropping board member who organized her appearance wasn’t good for a celebrity connection, but it felt a bit like the show showing off in the same way that guy was — I’m not sure what it added, in other words, but no matter.
Another montage of the opening round makes the point that the Cobra Kai students are all using the Miyagi-Do techniques taught to them by Robby. Daniel, disgusted, confronts Robby about this, which yields a nice line: “Never put passion in front of principle. Because even if you win, you lose.”
As ever, Cobra Kai is having more success. When Tory eliminates Devon Lee, Johnny’s book-smart debate-champ last-minute pick, that eliminates Eagle Fang from the girls’ bracket and means that Miguel has to win the tournament for the dojo to win overall. It ups the stakes pretty considerably, especially when Hawk, after a pep talk from Moon, makes a point that he intends to win the whole tournament by running right over Kyler, who frankly deserves it. But this is a fun development.
After so much focus on Robby and Miguel, as well as Hawk’s whole crisis of faith thing, it was easy to forget that Hawk was even in the tournament, let alone that he’d emerge as a front-runner. It’s a nice way to play with our expectations.
Other developments are a little more predictable. Sam beats Piper, obviously, and uses some of Johnny’s lessons (which he cheers for). But that was expected. Robby also brutally wins over Kenny after a motivational speech from Kreese advising him to fight his opponent rather than his friend. This might seem like a bit of an outside-the-box idea, given they’re a part of the same dojo, but tournament brackets can be unpredictable, and their little subplot has made this confrontation pretty inevitable all the way through.
Hawk versus Miguel in the semi-finals is a nice setup, I thought, and with Miguel being somewhat turned off by Johnny getting a little too Cobra Kai on him, I was curious about where it might go. What I certainly wasn’t expecting was Miguel to attempt Johnny’s tornado kick and for his back to immediately give out. “The Fall” ends with him screaming for his sensei on the ground.
Episode 10 – “The Rise”
First of all, let me just say this: Cobra Kai knows how to do a finale. It always has, to be fair, from Robby potentially paralyzing Miguel at the end of the second season to Johnny and Daniel teaming up at the end of the third, this is a show that knows how to resolve the right amount of plot points while also leaving just enough material for subsequent seasons to play with.
“The Rise” is very much the perfect version of this strategy. It has all the stellar fight choreography, surprising turns, emotional payoffs, and lingering narrative threads that you could ever need, and it makes the already-confirmed fifth season seem distressingly far away.
Anyway, let’s get on with it. “The Rise” opens with hospital machines bleeping, and given the ending of the previous episode, it’s easy to imagine that Miguel is attached to them. But no, it’s Raymond, who has been beaten half to death by Terry Silver. Crucially, a detective is investigating the attack, and keep this in mind because it’s going to be important later.
Miguel, on the other hand, is going to be fine — he just has a pulled muscle. He has thirty minutes to recover and decide if he can continue fighting. While he’s waylaid, Robby beats Demetri in a closely contested match, the girls’ final is determined, predictably, to be Tory and Sam, and Kenny reaches the end of his season-long arc. What happens is that backstage, he’s licking his wounds after losing to Robby, and Anthony apologizes to him.
Kenny doesn’t take it well, loses it, and beats Anthony up until Robby intervenes. You can see it in Robby’s face that he’s concerned Kenny has taken the whole Cobra Kai no mercy thing too seriously. Robby, who was supposed to be his mentor, has failed him.
Backstage, Johnny runs into Kreese, and continuing another of the season’s themes, the older man tries to reframe his questionable coaching back in the day — forcing Johnny to fight dirty against Daniel in the final — as him trying to protect him; he knew a loss would cause him to spiral, and he knew a loss was coming, so he did what he could to try and protect Johnny. We’ve seen Kreese’s affection for Johnny manifest in a few ways throughout this season, and we’ll see it come up again in a couple more before we’re done.
Anyway, following this conversation, Johnny gets a little desperate and puts a lot of emotional pressure on Miguel, who he’s desperate to see win, but for the wrong reasons — to spite Daniel and Kreese, mainly. In yet another throwback to the original film, Miguel has one minute to return to the mat, and a countdown timer starts up for maximum drama, but he just… never shows.
Image from ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 4, Episode 10 (Credit – Netflix)
Hawk progresses to the final to face Robby on the back of this technicality. When Johnny goes backstage, Miguel is gone. He isn’t far away, though — he’s around the corner making amends with Sam, to whom he explains that he didn’t feel as if he was fighting for himself anymore. They share a kiss of reconciliation.
But back to the tournament. Since Cobra Kai have so many points, they only need to win one match to win the tournament, so Miyagi-Do needs to leave with both male and female champions. Robby and Hawk get things started with an excellently choreographed fight that is almost entirely a showcase of martial prowess rather than a payoff to any particular theme or idea.
Hawk does ask for a timeout and ask Daniel what approach he should take since Robby knows all his moves, and Daniel does concede that, since he’s more experienced than Robby in Cobra Kai he should use that, and there’s a very brief moment when a distraction from Kenny prevents Robby from taking the win. But for the most part, the fight is even, fair, and produces a clean winner without any controversy — that winner is Hawk.
It’s a big fist-pump moment, this, especially after “The Rise” made such a big deal of SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME and the two of them needlessly going topless for the final point. Of course, after Miguel “fell” at the end of the previous episode, it made sense that he’d be the one to do the rising, so our expectations are subverted again here. I like this outcome.
It’s surprisingly the girls’ match where all the emotion is bundled up. Backstage, Amanda talks to Tory, who we learn is seeing someone on Amanda’s recommendation to get help with her mother and such, and the only thing Amanda wants in return is for Tory to play by the rules — which seems fair enough, even if a little foreboding.
On the mats, Daniel talks with Johnny and politely requests his help. They both apologize to one another after spending all season believing that doing so shows weakness, and they’re announced together, both as two-time All Valley Championship winners, as Sam’s senseis. Honestly, I was pretty emotional at this point, and when Sam hugged her father after he finally admitted that he wanted her to be her, rather than another version of him, it felt like such a strong payoff to all this season’s development that I almost applauded. Just brilliant stuff.
Anyway, the match. It’s pretty even all the way through. Sam nips back and forth to Daniel and Johnny a couple of times, but their advice is basically a reiteration of what they said earlier — she needs to embrace all of what she has learned and form her own style, guided by her own instincts. And then, of course, the shenanigans begin.
When Sam scores what is clearly a match-winning point, Tory is ruled as being out-of-bounds, so the match continues. At two apiece, Tory lands an illegal elbow which she’s adamant was unintentional. Silver tells her to do it again, and he’s confident she won’t be penalized for it, but Kreese, of all people, recognizes that this is wrong, and stands up to Silver. He has a flashback to how he treated Johnny when he didn’t win back in the day, and this time, he tells Tory to do what she wants to do. She does, and she wins, seemingly fairly. She becomes the first female All-Valley karate champion. Tellingly, it’s Silver who gives the acceptance speech and announces they’ll be opening Cobra Kai franchises throughout the valley.
Sam is devastated, obviously — they did everything right, and yet she still lost. How? Well, it turns out because of Silver. When Tory heads back inside the venue to retrieve her bags, she overhears Terry and the referee having a conversation that confirms Silver paid the ref off — hence the out-of-bounds call. Her entire win is delegitimized at that moment.
“The Rise” ends with a flurry of scenes that set the emotional and narrative stakes for the next season. First, Johnny goes to Cobra Kai, which has now been abandoned since they’re moving to a new location — Robby, who followed him, explains this. The reason Robby followed his dad is that he’s upset about Kenny. He realizes he screwed up.
He breaks down about how he felt, the hate, the mistakes, and Johnny, not knowing what else to do, tells Robby to blame him. “I’m sick of blaming you, dad,” he whimpers, as Tanner Buchanan delivers an excellent burst of emotion that ends with father and son crying and holding one another in a hug that both of them probably need.
Elsewhere, Silver and Kreese have a celebratory drink, during which the matter of Kreese’s supposed weakness comes up yet again. Silver confesses that he knows what his weakness is — Johnny Lawrence, thus paying off that earlier conversation and some of the other legwork the season has done in this regard.
And at that moment, blue flashing lights turn up. As it turns out, Silver made a bargain with Raymond. He would allow him to become a Cobra Kai, only if he said that it was Kreese who beat him down. Just like that, Kreese is taken away in cuffs, and Silver takes over Cobra Kai. He has been a tremendous villain this season, and this is his moment to really shine.
When Johnny finally gets home, Miguel has left Carmen a note explaining that he has gone to Mexico to try and find his biological father. Presumably, all of the season’s parental shenanigans have left him in need of real answers. The problem, though, as Carmen explains to Johnny, is that Miguel’s father doesn’t even know he exists. On top of that, he’s also apparently a pretty bad dude. Nevertheless, Johnny is going to look for Miguel.
And that leaves Daniel. His final scene of the season finds him at Mr. Miyagi’s grave, telling the headstone that, despite the deal he made, he won’t be stepping down as a sensei. He won’t be closing the doors of Miyagi-Do. For once, he’ll be going on the offense to take Cobra Kai down once and for all, and he has a friend to help him do it — Chozen.
