Cobra Kai – Minefields

The continuing connection between Lia (Milena Rivero) and Kenny (Dallas Young) continues to not only bother Anthony (Griffin Santopietro) but become the subject of teasing from his friends. Continuing the bullying of Kenny, Anthony grabs Kenny’s clothes in the locker room and flees—only furthering to embarrass a half-naked Kenny as he runs out for them. Later at Cobra Kai practice as Kenny takes out his anger on a practice dummy, Robby (Tanner Buchanan) tries to advise him to be smart about how he gets back at his adversaries.  

Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) is gearing up for an Eagle Fang practice when his mother Carmen (Vanessa Rubio) opens their door to let Johnny (William Zabka). Realizing his water bottle is in his mother’s car he goes to fetch her keys from her bedroom—only to find Johnny’s headband in the sheets. Before Carmen and Johnny had a chance to tell Miguel, he has discovered their relationship and they discuss what this means going forward. While Miguel is a little surprised, he is happy that his mom is happy and leaves it there. 

Daniel (Ralph Macchio) approaches Anthony at home after finding a Cobra Kai hoodie in his room. Instead of coming clean about his vendetta against Kenny, Anthony spins a story of how he is being bullied by Kenny to appeal to Daniel’s anger towards Cobra Kai. Daniel buys the story and decides that it is time for Anthony to start learning Miyagi-Do karate. Anthony eagerly prepares for his first lesson but is sorely disappointed that instead of joining the other Miyagi-Do students in their skills training, he will be learning Daniel’s version of one of Mr. Miyagi’s favorite exercises with the cars: soap on, crap off. Leaving Anthony to head to the dealership, Daniel returns and is impressed by the line of clean cars. Unfortunately, Daniel soon learns that instead of cleaning the vehicles himself, Anthony hires a local named Artie (Rolando Fernandez) to clean the cars and pays him with Daniel’s credit card. Disappointed in Anthony’s laziness and ambivalence toward Mr. Miyagi’s teachings, Daniel walks off. 

Cobra Kai’s lesson for today focuses on exploiting the weaknesses of your opponent. Kreese (Martin Kove) and Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) decide to have a friendly competition with their students—the winner of the competition receiving a six-pack of beer. Tory (Peyton List) and Piper (Selah Austria) are up first, Tory very astute and aware of Piper’s weakness—quickly taking out her opponent. After Kyler (Joe Seo) scores another win for Kreese, Silver decides to go double or nothing. Kreese chooses Robby for the final match, Silver selecting Kenny. While at first Robby seems to have the upper hand, Silver convinces Kenny to manipulate the situation and he lands a hit on Robby—Silver winning the bet.  

At Eagle Fang, Devon (Oona O’Brien) shows up for her first practice with the rest of the team. Pleased that they finally have a female competitor, Johnny spares no time diving in with preparing his team for the dirty tricks that Cobra Kai will use to win. From having the students fight one armed to Devon getting her kicks in the nether regions of the boys, no exercise is off the table. But unlike his teammates, Johnny decides to keep Miguel by his side today as a co-sensei rather than a student. This creates discord between Miguel and his teammates as they feel that Johnny is favoring Miguel. Later when Miguel shows up late to dinner with his mom and Johnny, he expresses the frustration of feeling that everything has changed since his mom started dating Johnny.  

Remorseful at how everything went down with his father, Anthony heads to the storage room in the LaRusso house—where Mr. Miyagi’s picture resides along with the secret of Miyagi-Do karate that Daniel brought home from Okinawa. Daniel enters and realizing that Anthony was too little to know as much about Mr. Miyagi as his sister, tells Anthony the story of how when he was a newborn, he landed a kick to Mr. Miyagi’s face. Touched by the story, Anthony tells his dad that he will take care of Cobra Kai himself and plans to talk to Kenny.  

The next day at school Lia invites Anthony out to the fair with her and Kenny, believing that they will get along. Deciding to take his chance, Anthony tries to talk to Kenny but is met with coldness and taunting. Anthony’s friends stand behind him as he gets taunted by Kenny, eventually leading to an accidental push that has Kenny running down the hallway and ensconcing himself in the library to hide. The boys follow him in, unaware that he has set a trap to take them all down before closing in on Anthony. But before Kenny can take out any frustration on Anthony, the librarian returns and catches them. Daniel and Amanda (Courtney Henggeler) are called to West Valley Middle School, learning that Anthony and his friends have been bullying Kenny and are hereby suspended. Through the window, Daniel casts a disappointed glance at Anthony—Kenny leaning over to let Anthony know that he finally got him. 

At West Valley High School, Sam (Mary Mouser) and Miguel discuss how they feel their teams are weaker apart at this point—especially since Tory now has a support group of friends to protect her from Sam. Before they can discuss further, Johnny has Miguel skip school for the day and takes him to Eagle Fang to talk. Over slices of watermelon, Johnny opens up how he never had an authority role in his life that he could look up to. From the father that abandoned his mom when he was in kindergarten, to his heartless stepfather Sid, and even his toxic relationship with Kreese—these male figures never provided Johnny with the skills he needed to raise his own son. Miguel is aware that things will change since Johnny is now with his mom, but that Johnny will always be his sensei. With the issue resolved, Johnny is now ready to teach Miguel how to perform the Flying Tornado kick for the tournament. Before they can get to work, Sam enters Eagle Fang and is eager to join in on Johnny’s training. Instead of strictly focusing on Miyagi-Do, Sam hopes to have two styles to pull from when it comes time for competition. 

A man of his word, Kreese brings Silver a six-pack of beers for their bet—33s that both men used to enjoy drinking back in the day. Kreese starts to talk about one of their old army buddies who managed to get himself blown up going through a minefield—clearly trying to strike a nerve with Silver. In their lesson earlier, Silver focused on weakness and pointed out that Kreese even had one. While Silver tries to brush off the earlier conversation, Kreese doubles down and reminds Silver that of when he saved him from the fight in Vietnam. Rattled by Kreese, Silver promises to keep in line but it is obvious that this conflict is just beginning.