Minefields
Episode 7 of Cobra Kai Season 4 begins with tensions continuing to brew between Kenny and Anthony. Of course, it’s all about a girl and in this case it comes from Lia. She’s taken a real fancy to Kenny and as revenge, Anthony takes the boys’ clothes and rushes out the locker room. When Anthony arrives home with the Cobra Kai jumper, Daniel spots it and questions his son. Anthony spins this as if he’s the one being bullied so naturally LaRusso decides to teach him some Miyagi-Do karate. Anthony shies away from the hard work, pointing out he doesn’t actually care about karate and pays someone else to clean the cars instead. Daniel and Anthony eventually to talk openly later in the episode, and this seems to get through to young LaRusso Jr, re-examining what he’s been doing at school. Meanwhile, Cobra Kai’s big lesson this episode is all about weaknesses. Specifically it comes from finding the other fighter’s and exploiting it. Kreese decides to spice things up and sets a challenge where both he and Terry will pick a fighter; the winner will get a six pack of beer. The two choose their fighters, working their way through the roster and ending with Robby against Kenny. Kenny plays dirty, knocking Robby down with a leg sweep after feigning an injury. Devon Lee meanwhile joins Eagle Fang Karate. She actually knows a fair amount about karate and movies, which gets in Johnny’s good books. Unfortunately he also ends up shielding Miguel during the day’s lessons, refusing to let him get involved in the different lessons. Of course, this has the adverse effect of causing the other kids to turn against him. In the midst of all this, Johnny and Carmen try to talk to Miguel about their dating. It’s awkward to begin with but as that awkwardness continues, Johnny takes Miguel out of school and talks plainly to him. Johnny is fearful of their dynamic changing, especially now that he’s dating Carmen, Way back in the day, Johnny’s father left and it caused a whole world of issues for him as he felt cheated. This is especially true when his mum tried to find him another father. All that anger and resentment he put on Robby’s life and Johnny is adamant he doesn’t want to do the same thing with Miguel. Through it all though, Miguel still wants Johnny to be his sensei. For now, it falls to learning a special move called the Flying Tornado. Remember Daniel’s chat with Anthony? Well, at school it’s absolutely no match for Kenny who blindsides the bullies in the library and beats them all down one at a time. When he gets caught with Anthony, the teachers are brought in – including Amanda and Daniel. When they learn that Anthony has been the instigator for a lot of the trouble in school, they’re mortified. Meanwhile, Kreese confronts Terry over his lesson about weaknesses. He calls out Terry for jumping the gun and warns him he needs to watch where he steps from now on. Kreese is the one in charge and Terry needs to fall in line as lieutenant. It appears Cobra Kai has more than a few issues of its own!
The Episode Review
This chapter starts to wheel back around to those early subplots we’ve been following that seemed to have been abandoned. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a lot being brushed over or under-developed – like the new girls joining all the dojos – but for the most part there’s a much more consistent and methodical approach to this chapter. Everything is building up to the big All Valley tournament and it promises to be quite the dramatic affair when it all inevitably kicks off. Who will come out on top? We’ll have to wait and see!
