Summary
Cobra Kai Season 6 piles on the emotion in Episode 12, pushing the karate into the margins to focus on its characters.
Everything’s coming full circle in Cobra Kai Season 6. The Sekai Taikai is coming to the Valley. Gunther is in town to kick his way through the local bureaucracy and set the stage for the remainder of a tournament that, for the locals, will be indistinguishable from the famed All-Valley that has defined the lives of both Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence. But don’t worry about that for now. Episode 12, “Rattled”, has other, more important things to focus on.
Love is in the air. As is parental anxiety. And that’s what counts. That’s what, on some level, this show has always been about.
Sam Is Heading For Pastures New
With Sam having revealed she’s not entirely keen on attending UCLA and instead wants to venture further afield, Daniel and Amanda have to reckon with that idea while also babysitting Chozen, who has finally received a letter from Kumiko that reveals she loves him… but only as a friend. Since her heart lies elsewhere, he’s heading for a self-destructive spiral of heavy drinking and bingeing Storage Wars.
To remedy this, Daniel and Amanda take Chozen on a double date to one of the Valley’s classic wine-tasting events, where he meets Winnie, the free-thinking hippie mother of Moon. She’s into reiki, crystals, tarot readings, and various other things that Chozen thinks are ridiculous, but she’s also really sweet and open-minded, so while Daniel and Amanda get increasingly drunk and weepy about Sam, Chozen and his new friend bond over a shared love of trash TV.
There’s really no reason for Cobra Kai Season 6, Episode 12 to include any of this, but I’m glad it did. Chozen is a great character who has had increasingly little to do, and Winnie ends up being an unexpectedly brilliant sounding board for him to truly reckon with his own feelings about Kumiko and his future. It’s a nothing scene that nonetheless speaks to why Cobra Kai is so beloved.
Preparing for Action
With all this adult drama it’s sometimes easy to forget that it’s the kids who’re going to have to fight. Since Tory is refusing to compete as the only remaining member of Cobra Kai, Sam is getting an automatic pass to the final to take on Zara, which is a tall order, so Sam asks Tory to train her. She uses the sessions to try and persuade Tory to rejoin the competition herself, but she isn’t especially keen.
The boys, meanwhile, turn to technology. Hawk and Demetri have developed the most advanced karate training program in the world, FIGHT, which stands for Fully Integrated Generative Haptive Technology. The general idea is that Miguel can directly mimic Axel’s fighting style, allowing Robby to prepare for the final, despite the algorithm giving him a very slim chance of success.
To be fair, though, that chance does increase exponentially after Miguel gives Robby a serious pep talk. Not for the first time, either. But we have to buy into Robby’s ability to win this fight, so here we are.
Welcome to the World, Laura
Johnny is undoubtedly the core of “Rattled”. After Rosa implies that Carmen’s baby will be born in sin given Johnny and Carmen aren’t married, Johnny applies his usual hare-brained scheming to the task of hastily planning a proposal. He Googles “best proposals ever.” He takes a cooking class. He asks Bobby if he has to worry about going to Hell. It’s all classic Johnny Lawrence.
The next time Johnny sees Rosa, she’s walking into the elaborate surprise proposal he has constructed, and she’s so moved that she apologizes for being pushy in the first place and tells him how lucky Carmen and her baby will be to have him, which is very nice. But there’s no time to dwell on it. Johnny gets a call informing him that Carmen’s waters have broken, so he rushes to her bedside to drop to one knee. She says yes, of course. But she doesn’t anticipate that Johnny hasn’t just planned the proposal — he has planned the entire wedding.
Bobby arrives to officiate the ceremony, along with a slightly drunk Daniel and Amanda, Robby and Miguel, Rosa, Chozen, and three violinists, for some reason. Bobby’s speech backgrounds a montage about togetherness that shows Demetri and Hawk, Sam and Tory, Miguel and Johnny — all of the show’s most iconic pairings. The happy couple say “I do”.
Carmen gives birth to a healthy baby girl. She’s named Laura, after Johnny’s mother. No, you’re crying!
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