Cobra Kai 1.08

Molting

Johnny takes his students to a junkyard to train. He creates an obstacle course for them to run. He has them break things. He has dogs chase them around the junkyard. He confides in Miguel later on that his expectations aren't very high for the All Valley Tournament.

Miguel shows Johnny a picture of Sam, his girlfriend. Johnny recognizes her as being Danny's daughter. He tries to talk Miguel into breaking up with Sam. He tells Sam his version about what happened when he and Danny met in high school. Danny is the bad guy in Johnny's version. 

Danny's mother comes to visit her son and his family. She and Amanda do not get along. Robby comes over to train with Danny and meets Samantha for the first time. Danny takes Robby out in to the woods to train. Robby tries to tell Danny who his father is but he chickens out.

Miguel's mother invites Johnny over for dinner. Danny gets a call from Samantha in the middle of dinner. His mother lets him leave the table to take the call. Sam gets interrupted by her father. She knows her dad disapproves of Cobra Kai and that Miguel trains at the Cobra Kai dojo. Miguel gets the impression that something is wrong.

Miguel goes to the movies with Aisha and Hawk. Miguel knows that there is bad blood between Johnny and Danny, Sam's father. Miguel and Aisha talk about it. He is convinced that Sam's father isn't going to like him. Hawk encourages him to go over to Sam's place. He does and gets there just in time to see the LaRusso family having dinner. Robby is also there, sitting next to Sam. They seem to be enjoying themselves.

Louie, Danny's cousin, hears about Danny's recent trouble with Cobra Kai. He gets into an argument with Danny. He tries to make it up to him by going over to Johnny's place, with a couple bikers he just met. They smash up Johnny's car and then set it on fire. Johnny fights with them and then jumps on one of the biker's motorcycles and heads out to find Danny.

Thoughts

There's a lot going on in this episode. I was shocked that Johnny had dogs attack his students. It's on a par with pushing Miguel into the pool with his hands tied.

I didn't realize or maybe I forgot that Sam and Miguel knew about the bad blood between her father and his sensei. I will be very surprised if Danny doesn't find out about Sam and Miguel in the next episode. My other question is when will Danny and Johnny find out about Robby.

Robby clearly has eyes for Sam but I don't think she reciprocates that feeling. I can see how Miguel would react the way he does when he sees them together. It's teenage melodrama. I'm sure things will have evolved between the three of them but I'm not sure exactly where things will be at the season's end.

There is a moment that reminded me of a scene from Empire Strikes Back. It is when Danny is doing a handstand.  I'm pretty sure that Luke Skywalked did something similar when he was on Dagobah.

This show is not great. I cut it a fair amount of slack. I do enjoy the way it is all set up and the direction that things are headed. I'm not sure I will be satisfied with the end to the season.