Cobra Kai / Tropes S to Z

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S

• Selective Obliviousness: Despite Johnny explaining that he only beat up Kyler and his friends because they were assaulting Miguel, Daniel still assumes Johnny hasn't really changed and only bad things can come from reopening Cobra Kai.
• Self-Serving Memory:
  • When Johnny tells his life story to Miguel about why he hates Daniel LaRusso, he tells a story that paints Johnny as the victim in the first movie. He says Daniel was making moves on Ali (they had broken up); he says Daniel sucker-punched him without provocation (Johnny was clearly bullying Ali and Daniel both); about the school dance beating, he says he hadn't done a thing to Daniel in months (he and his gang tripped Daniel during soccer practice and ran him off a hill on their motorcycles after he saw Daniel scoping them out at Cobra Kai); he even goes as far as saying Miyagi had assaulted him and his friends (when they were all but trying to kill Daniel). And through it all, it's abundantly clear that Johnny believes every word of it.
  • For all the times Johnny accuses Daniel of winning the 1984 tournament because of an illegal kick, he fails to remember the only reason why Daniel chose to perform that move in the first place was because it was his last resort, since Johnny and Bobby before him had been ordered by Kreese to assault Daniel with illegal moves and managed to cripple him twice. And even if the Crane Kick was considered an illegal move in-universe, Johnny's "illegal contact to the knee" gives him no right to speak about unfair victory, because Daniel played by their rules and still won.
  • Daniel isn't completely immune to this either, as while he is more accurate in terms of what Johnny and the Cobra Kais did to him, he has a tendency to downplay his own bad behavior that only made things worse. This factors into Poor Communication Kills as both Amanda and Sam have heard his stories many times over and came to see them as exaggerated; being knocked off his bike and rolling down a steep grass hill was a legitimately dangerous event but as Daniel called it a cliff, they tend to laugh it off.^note There's a strong possibility that he's blurring that experience with when he and Jessica nearly got dropped off a cliff by Mike Barnes in The Karate Kid Part III For that reason, it takes a while into the show before others understand what Daniel was talking about, as Amanda comes to realize that the stories about Kreese were not exaggerated.
  • Ali Mills eventually sets the two of them straight, after explaining that there are three distinct versions of what happened between them back in the day: there's Daniel's version of the story, and then Johnny's version of the story, and then there's actually what happened.
• Sensei for Scoundrels:
  • Johnny might not be the outright Evil Mentor that Kreese was, but he solidly occupies the Darker and Edgier side of this trope. And his students end up going too far. The great tragedy is that Johnny never wanted to be this trope. He assumed that Kreese, not Cobra Kai and its ethos, was the reason he and his friends turned into what they were, and was far too happy to see his wimpy students badass up to see the damage he was doing before it was too late.
  • Played straight from Season 2 onward. First, Kreese reappears and ultimately takes over Cobra Kai from Johnny, bringing in his old buddy, Terry Silver. And then Silver shows his colors at the end of Season 4, setting up Kreese to be arrested and taking over Cobra Kai with the intention of expanding it in his name and ideal.
• Sequel Hook:
  • Season 1: Daniel intends to start a dojo to train others in Miyagi-Do karate as a response to Cobra Kai. Sam reconsiders her karate training and is prepared to start again. Johnny finds John Kreese returning to the Cobra Kai dojo.
  • Season 2: A huge brawl in the high school between Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do students leaves Sam hospitalized, Miguel with a spinal injury that may cripple or kill him, and Robby on the run for aggravated assault. Daniel and Johnny seem to realize that their rivalry has poisoned their students, though both seem to prefer retiring as sensei instead of working to heal the rift. Kreese takes over Cobra Kai from Johnny, promising to teach the kids "right." And Ali friend requests Johnny, likely setting the stage for her arrival into the series (and not a moment too soon considering she's a pediatric surgeon and there just happens to be a casualty of the Escalating War inside the school who could use one of those).
  • Season 3: Daniel and Johnny finally come together by merging their dojos. Kreese has successfully indoctrinated Robby and Tory and has full control of the most ruthless Cobra Kai yet. He also makes a call to his old buddy Terry Silver to enlist his help. This is all leading to the next All Valley where Kreese promises if Cobra Kai doesn't win, he will leave for good.
  • Season 4: Cobra Kai emerges victorious from the All-Valley again, forcing Miyagi-do and Eagle Fang to disband. In addition, Silver usurps control of Cobra Kai from Kreese, who is framed for the beating Stingray suffered under Silver himself. However, Robby, Tory and even Kreese come to realize just how awful the dojo's philosophy is. Miguel leaves for Mexico to find his biological father, leaving Johnny to reconcile with a remorseful Robby. Desperate to see Cobra Kai end, Daniel calls in Chozen from Okinawa as one final gasp at forming a dojo to help his pupils and putting their demons behind them.
  • Season 5: While Terry is defeated, fully exposed and imprisoned; Cobra Kai's name is disgraced and pretty much everyone who had a problem with each other is now reconciled—except Kenny's not quite ready to talk to Robby about it yet, Kreese escapes jail, fully intent on continuing his war with Johnny and Daniel—and may have the charges dismissed against him with Stingray coming forward—and the competition with the Sekai Taikai—whether or not Cobra Kai's involved—is still on the horizon too.
• Sequel Series: The series is a distant continuation of The Karate Kid film series, set 34 years after the first film, The Karate Kid (1984).
• Serious Business: This show is more or less a full-on deconstruction of this trope with respect to karate. Daniel's victory at a karate tournament for teenagers several decades ago is remembered across the valley widely enough to be used as an advertising gimmick for his car dealership. Kreese and Johnny are bitter enough about their loss that they're still trying to avenge it. And the rivalry between opposing dojos is so intense that is grips the town in a series of massive brawls. In Season 3, the rivalry progresses into attempted murder.
• Servile Snarker: Johnny's stepdad's nurse tends to fend off any insults from her employer by firing back with her own quips. Despite this, she does seem to actually care about Sid's health — at least enough to interrupt him when his heated bickering with Johnny is threatening his blood pressure.
• Sex Is Violence:
  • Played for Laughs when Daniel clears out his home dojo and tries to get a sparring partner. Sam's not in the mood (after receiving a harassing message from Yasmine), so he goes to Amanda. Amanda reminds him what happened ten years ago when they hit the mat for a little "karate", nodding her head in Anthony's direction.
  • Sam has a moment of this with her current Love Interest once a season. The farthest she's gotten is in Season 3 when she brings Miguel to the Miyagi dojo for some private sparring, which culminates in him on top of her, French-kissing her...and getting caught by Daniel.
    Daniel: And, uh, [points a finger back and forth between them] keep the sparring to a minimum. Understood?
• Sexy Discretion Shot: Used when Johnny and Carmen finally sleep together. The two are shown heavily making out in Johnny's apartment (knocking his television off the wall in the process), and the scene ends with them going to the bedroom with a closed door. The next episode starts off with them waking up together in Johnny's bed.
• Shadow Archetype:
  • Season 1 subtly shows Johnny and Daniel are this as mentors: Daniel clings to Mr. Miyagi's teachings, focusing on balance and inner strength which becomes outer strength. Johnny takes the "good" parts of Cobra Kai seeks to "toughen up" his students into "badasses," focusing on building outer strength which becomes inner strength. Both are ending up in mostly the same place: taking troubled youths and giving them confidence and the ability to stand up for themselves, but their starting points to get there are in opposite directions.
  • Season 2 features both Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai becoming this to each other, both as institutions and even down to specific characters having counterparts, highlighting the Grey-and-Gray Morality of the season:
    • Johnny's life is improving, even as a parent and paternal figure for Miguel and Robby, when he tries to be an Internal Reformist for Cobra Kai, while Daniel is overwhelmed by his various responsibilities, It's Personal issues with Johnny and Cobra Kai, and clearly ends up as an example of Parents as People when his limits are reached.
    • Miguel takes to Johnny's attempted reforms and ends the season displaying honor... but ends up horribly injured accidentally when Robby loses his temper and self-control and attacks when Miguel's guard is down. The fact that Robby is Johnny's estranged son while Miguel is a surrogate son for Johnny only makes the parallels stronger.
    • Sam has a counterpart in Tory, both as simple rivals who don't get along and as potential loves for Miguel, with Sam's sweet nature contrasting with Tory's tougher Dark and Troubled Past.
    • Hawk turns on Demetri as part of his Testosterone Poisoning nature going crazy, making Demetri join Miyagi-Do and embrace an Awesomeness by Analysis defensive style.
    • Bert gains a counterpart in Nathaniel, crafting two opposing pint-sized gang members who face each other when the brawl finally break out.
    • Hawk's two henchmen end up split against each other, with Chris joining Miyagi-Do, angering Mitch into specifically seeking him out during the school brawl.
  • Season 3's flashbacks make Kreese this to Mr. Miyagi to an even greater extent than he already was in the films. Both men served in the armed forces, witnessed the horrors of war and had to deal with the death of their Love Interest while they were away, but while Mr. Miyagi never wavered from being a kind and honorable man whose wartime experiences only strengthened his belief in pacifism, Kreese allowed those experiences to warp him into an Ax-Crazy Social Darwinist and adopted the mindset that mercy is a weakness as a result.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Two separate instances in the season 5 finale:
  • Mitch spends the entire season acting as The Mole for Cobra Kai and betrays Miyagi-Fang during the standoff at the flagship dojo, revealing he felt disrespected by them and also wanted Cobra Kai's expensive merchandises. Ultimately, Miyagi-Fang gets the last laugh once the video of Silver's confession of the bribery goes viral, leaving all the Cobra Kai students stunned by the shocking revelation, and with Silver finally arrested, the dojo is closed down for now.
  • Kreese escapes prison before he could be exonerated thanks to Stingray revising his testimony. Escaping detention is a separate crime in and on itself, as Kreese is at risk of being put back behind bars again.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Daniel wears a snappy suit when he's working at and advertising the LaRusso Auto Group.
• Shout-Out:
  • Johnny name-drops a number of 80s metal bands that he likes, a few of which feature in the soundtrack.
  • One of the first things that Johnny does after discovering the internet is watch Iron Eagle.
  • Johnny attempting to wean Miguel off his asthma inhaler cold turkey is similar to Sidekicks.
  • Demetri and Daniel discuss Game of Thrones several times, using the plot details as life lessons.
  • Demetri tries to geek out with Hawk about Doctor Who, mentioning that the latest Doctor is female.
  • Sam calls Robby's fake limp trick "pulling a Keyser Söze".
  • Robby is seen reading Lord of the Flies, an apt metaphor for what went down a few episodes previous.
  • When Amanda confronts Kreese at his dojo, she refers to him as Rambo. Bonus points for the fact that Kreese's actor (Martin Kove) played a supporting role in Rambo: First Blood Part II.
  • Daniel tries to get Anthony started in karate, only to get his refusal while playing Tekken 6.
  • Robby's middle name, "Swayze" and the discussion of Dirty Dancing that follows. Dance films are to romance what sports films are to masculinity, and the writers of the show know it!
  • In the beginning of season 3, Amanda opines that instead of just being expelled, Tory "... should be Shawshanked!"
  • Kenny and Shawn's dad prominently wears a US Armed Forces O-4 insignia on his uniform. Which makes him Major Payne.
  • In the last two episodes of Season 5 Stingray wears a T-shirt with a certain 8-bit sword next to the caption "IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS."
• Shown Their Work:
  • Johnny knocks Kyler down with a jump kick, then immediately groans and clutches his groin. Performing an acrobatic move when out of practice (and without warming up) has a high chance of self-injury. There's also the matter of kicking in snug-fitting jeans, which aren't cut for freedom of movement.
  • Despite the health inspector evaluating Cobra Kai seeming like an Obstructive Bureaucrat, when Johnny claims that Miguel's "just some illegal [he] hired to clean up", the inspector shrugs and accepts it. Labor law isn't his jurisdiction, and hiring undocumented workers isn't a big enough deal in Southern California for him to go out of his way to deal with it, as California's state government is one of the most lax when it comes to undocumented immigrants.
  • Several lines in Season 3 are spoken in the Okinawan language, which few people outside of Okinawa even know exists.
  • Season 5 introduces Sensei Kim Da-Eun, a Korean master of Tang Soo Do, who accurately uses Korean martial arts terminology, such as saying 'dojang' instead of 'dojo'.
• Simple Solution Won't Work: After Amanda gets a grasp of how crazy John Kreese is and how violent he's turning the students of Cobra Kai, she insists that Daniel and the rest of the cast just ditch the whole Rival Dojos situation, call the police and get a restraining order to keep Kreese away. Unfortunately, Kreese is a Manipulative Bastard who has taken steps to prevent this already, including presenting himself (quite falsely) as a social advocate to build goodwill and getting a restraining order of his own to keep the LaRussos away until he's good and ready to take them out (which he got, ironically, because Amanda barged into the Cobra Kai dojo to tell off Kreese after his students hurt her daughter and Demetri).
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • This is Miguel's style to a T. He disdains flashy attacks and focuses on delivering basic punches and straight kicks with pinpoint accuracy and overwhelming power. While he is by no means the most visually impressive fighter in the series, he dominates any fight he gets into almost effortlessly.
  • The "Silver Bullet" technique that Terry Silver teaches Kenny in Season 5 is nothing more than a simple punch to the chest with the index finger's knuckle extended, concentrating all the force onto a smaller point, but it's delivered with such precision and power that it can completely knock the wind out of its victim, making it effectively a One-Hit KO.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: While Johnny is Daniel's teenage rival, in the business world Tom Cole owns his own chain of car dealerships that rivals Daniel's. The competitive streak gets rather comical at times.
• The Smurfette Principle:
  • Aisha is the only girl on Team Cobra Kai in Season 1... and that's only because Johnny needed all the students he could get. Miguel has to actually talk Johnny into letting her join by appealing to the fact that her family is loaded and Johnny is financially strained.
  • In Season 2, Cobra Kai adds another girl in Tory, but Sam ends up the only girl in Miyagi-Do.
  • In Season 3, the show bends over backwards to make this the case. Kreese has a number of girls in his classes at Cobra Kai, but Tory is the only one of them who gets any storylines of her own (and Aisha has departed). Kreese does scout a player from the girls' basketball team and lets her try out for a spot in the dojo, but she loses her initiation fight with Tory, so Kreese cuts her. And Sam continues to be the only girl in Miyagi-Do. And Johnny's startup dojo Eagle Fang is made entirely of boys that Kreese kicked out of Cobra Kai for one reason or another. By the end of the season, Eagle Fang and Miyagi-Do have merged and still maintain this with Sam being the only girl there.
  • Deconstructed in Season 4. After Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang split, it's announced that the All Valley will have a separate girls bracket for the first time, leaving Johnny scrambling to find any female students to compete for him. Although he recruits Devon, she's very young and inexperienced, and ultimately loses to Tory in a shut-out in the quarter-finals. Meanwhile, Miyagi-Do place all their faith in Sam, which costs them the entire tournament when she's beaten by Tory in the final. On the other hand, Cobra Kai are able to recruit Piper and several other girls for their team, giving them a much better shot at maximising their overall point total.
  • Lampshaded in Season 5. Upon betraying Miyagi-Fang for Cobra Kai, Mitch explains that his decision was partially motivated by the dojo's lack of chicks, before quickly reassuring Sam that he means no offense.
• Sore Loser:
  • With all the demands from Johnny to become badass, some do not take defeat lightly at the tournament. Aisha storms off after she loses, cursing at Xander Stone. Hawk disqualifies himself after getting knocked on his ass by Robby and attacking him during the reset.
  • Kreese manages to groom his students into having this sort of mindset, as seen by Tory's reaction to losing her rematch with Sam in the season 3 finale and Hawk defecting at that moment.
• Special Guest: Dee Snider appears As Himself in the fifth episode of Season 3, performing at a concert that Johnny takes Miguel to.
• Spoiled Brat: Daniel's son Anthony is a rude little shit obsessed with video games. (His Distaff Counterpart in this regard is Yasmine, a Daddy's Girl who is obsessed with cyberbullying.) After some Character Development, by Season 5 both of them have largely grown out of it.
• Spot the Thread: How Terry Silver deduces that Chozen is lying about his identity when they toast a drink together: Chozen uses a toast particular to Okinawa despite claiming to be from Kyoto.
• Stage Mom: Xander Stone's mom Patricia is quite overbearing in the way she cheers him on from the stands.
• Star-Crossed Lovers:
  • Samantha LaRusso and Miguel Diaz. Miguel is the top student of Johnny's Cobra Kai, a place her dad has very personal reasons to dislike due to both the bullying he endured from Johnny and being manipulated by Terry Silver. Sam understands full well how poorly her father will likely react to her dating his teenage Arch-Nemesis' star pupil, so goes to great lengths to conceal the relationship... which means Miguel thinks she's dumping him for Robby, which becomes fact after one bout of Alcohol-Induced Stupidity. Then they find their way back to each other, though, after circumstances cut Robby out of the picture and Miguel renounces his ties to Cobra Kai, and are the ones to help bring their senseis' dojos together. Their relationship drama is as much a plot contributor as Daniel and Johnny's rivalry.
  • Sam and Robby (noticing a pattern here?) The LaRussos actually really like Robby and think he's a great kid, nothing at all like his dad... but he's still Johnny Lawrence's son, and there's still that level of friction in their relationship. Slightly different from Sam and Miguel, both understand the potential pitfalls of their relationship, and ease into revealing it to Sam's parents. But then the relationship ends abruptly after Robby puts Miguel in the hospital at the end of the school brawl, setting off a chain of events where Sam gets back together with Miguel while Robby joins Cobra Kai.
• Start of Darkness:
  • One episode reveals the bitter home life that Johnny experienced as a child, which is what drew him to the Cobra Kai in the first place. For all Kreese's moral failings, he gave young Johnny more attention and guidance than his own stepfather ever did.
  • Most of the karate students seem to be following this path.
    • Cobra Kai turns a bunch of bullied kids into bullies thanks to the Strike First policy. Hawk is the worst of them all, remaking his entire identity to have a large mohawk and several tattoos — and a violence-prone jerkass attitude to go with it.
    • Robby, despite following Miyagi-Do training, can't let go of his own anger towards Miguel (between Johnny having practically adopted Miguel, and Miguel taking advantage of Sam in her drunken state), leading to him knocking Miguel off the balcony. His feelings of being betrayed by Daniel and Johnny over season 3, and his bitterness at Sam having no regrets over cheating on him with Miguel, leave him open to being manipulated by Kreese and Tory. He ultimately chooses to join Cobra Kai to spite both his dad and Daniel.
  • We get to see Kreese's in Season 3. Turns out getting his team captured because he wouldn't blow a charge (to save a comrade that ultimately got executed mere minutes later anyway), finding out his girlfriend died while he was overseas, having to fight to the death for the amusement of his captors and having a captain that openly gloated most of this while attempting to kill him to save his own hide while preaching "no mercy". Yeah...no shocker to see that it changed him.
• Stealth Pun: In season 5, we meet a prison psychiatrist named Dr. Folsom who deals with patients' depression, or blues.
• Still Got It:
  • Once Kyler shoves him outside of the strip mall, Johnny shows that despite being well into middle age, he can still wipe the floor with anyone who isn't Daniel LaRusso, Mr. Miyagi, or Terry Silver.
  • Similarly, Tom Cole learns that despite the fact that Daniel's two All-Valley Karate Championship trophies were both awarded more than 30 years ago, the man still has enough mojo to spin-kick a drink out of your hand.
  • Just because Sam hasn't practiced for a few years doesn't mean she's forgotten everything. A handsy Kyler finds this out the painful way, while Miguel finds out in a sexy way.
  • When Johnny attacks Kreese, the original Cobra Kai sensei manages to fight his former prize student to a draw — no small feat, given that Kreese is geriatric enough to be a legitimate Vietnam veteran in 2018.
  • When Johnny goes to a bar with his old Cobra Kai buddies in Season 2, a sexually-harassing punk and his pals learn the hard way that — even if it ends on a more realistic note — Bobby, Tommy, and Jimmy can still kick just as much ass as Johnny can.
  • In Season 3, Daniel spends a day sparing with Chozen, his nemesis from Karate Kid Part II. It soon becomes obvious that Chozen has not merely kept his fighting skills on par with Daniel's, but is clearly a level better.
  • Season 4 shows that despite seemingly being away from karate for 35 years, Terry Silver is still dangerous enough to give a clean win to both Robby Keene and Johnny Lawrence.
• Stock Unsolved Mysteries: Rembrandt van Rijn's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee painting, stolen from a museum in 1990 and never recovered in real life, hangs on the wall of Terry Silver. It is stolen from him by Mike Barnes as compensation for the loss of his furniture store.
• Stone Wall:
  • Combines with Victory by Endurance to be Aisha's default fighting strategy.
  • Miyagi-Do fighters tend to focus on defensive moves and wait for an opening, which contrasts the Attack! Attack! Attack! Cobra Kai method. This is best seen in Demetri's victory against Hawk in the schoolyard brawl, as Hawk had no idea how to respond to someone deflecting his attacks.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • Johnny's half-assed fliers for the new Cobra Kai dojo. Not a single character who sees them reacts positively to them.
  • Daniel's TV commercials involve him karate-chopping prices and announcing that all buying customers get their own Bonsai tree for free. "We kick the competition!"
  • Daniel's business rival Tom Cole counters Daniel's ads by creating one that essentially disses Daniel, in which he dresses up like a Yankee, invokes that Daniel is not patriotic, and offers his customers a free drought-resistant cactus (implying Daniel is a water waster).
    Cole: You...musket down here!
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Johnny's high school friend and former Cobra Kai teammate Tommy shows up halfway through Season 2 only to die from cancer at the end of the episode. Tragically, the trope extended into the real world, as the actor who played Tommy — Rob Garrison — passed away himself only a few months after Season 2 aired.
• Suicide is Shameful: Brought up in the last episode of Season 1. When Eli/Hawk speculates that Johnny might have killed himself, Aisha dismisses the notion as being "too pussy a move" for their sensei.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: For a drama filled comedy with plenty of karate action and cheesy 80s inspired writing, Cobra Kai is filled with this trope. This trope is most commonly seen at the start of each season to address the plot of the previous season but are still very common throughout the seasons themselves:
  • Daniel tries using Miyagi's famous Healing Hands to heal Robby's shoulder at the All Valley Tournament, only to give up and call a medic instead.
  • While cleaning up the vandalized Miyagi-Do dojo, Demetri attempts to show Chris that they don't need to rely on physical strength to lift the giant stone by using a plank of wood as a lever to create a pivot point that will enable them to lift it without exerting themselves. Unfortunately, this is not the Looney Tunes world: the plank promptly snaps in half under the weight of the stone and the force of Demetri pushing down on the other end.
  • The Season 1 finale implied Robby and Johnny's relationship was on the mend and the narration assumes so, with the former accepting the latter's apology for Miguel's actions at the tournament. However, 16 years of resentment doesn't magically disappear overnight, and their first meeting in Season 2 has them pretty much back to where they started.
  • Johnny gives Miguel an epic Rousing Speech at the hospital, all about how if he wants to get back on his feet, he has to do it for himself. Miguel takes his words to heart... and falls out of his bed. One speech isn't enough to overcome a serious spinal injury.
  • Johnny takes his tough love outside-the-box approach to helping Miguel get out of his wheelchair. But his unorthodox methods do not work because they aren't backed up by medical expertise. Even Miguel regaining his ability to tap his feet at the concert is a flop because Johnny took him there to cheer him up, not for training. Johnny starts to make progress only after doing his research.
  • In a Call-Back to the first film, Mitch, echoing Tommy's actions, offers the Cobras "a warm one" as they're hanging out. Instead of taking it, Hawk is disgusted and refuses, pointing out warm beer tastes terrible and asking why he didn't keep an ice pack in his backpack to keep the beers cold.
  • Just because Johnny is in a better place mentally and is more willing to be a father figure to Miguel than he was to Robby initially, it doesn't mean he will suddenly be suited to the role. When he and Carmen finally confirm their relationship in front of Miguel, Johnny can't prevent his relationship with Miguel from getting awkward and somewhat strained, and he admits he doesn't really know what he's doing. These small cracks lead to Miguel forfeiting his tournament match when he feels Johnny is just trying to use him, and then leave to Mexico to find his own father to figure out who he is.
  • Previous episodes have made no secret of the fact that Johnny and Carmen often make love. Most shows with hyper-sexual couples never address the question of pregnancy, making Carmen's pregnancy here surprising. They even defy Law of Inverse Fertility in that given his poor finances and common sense, Johnny was tricked into buying knock-off condoms.
  • Kreese has shown some ability to paint himself as a a decent man and does it again to the prison staff to get himself an early release. But this time it doesn't work because he's trying it on a prison psychologist who has dealt with plenty of manipulative prisoners who tried to tell her what she wants to hear in her career.
• Swapped Roles: In the original movie, Daniel was the Working-Class Hero while Johnny was the Privileged Rival. A few decades later, Daniel has built a chain of successful businesses and is doing very well for himself, while Johnny has cut ties with his wealthy stepfather and become a sporadically employed drunk on the edge of financial insolvency.
• Swiss-Cheese Security:
  • Despite the massive brawl at the end of Season 2, and the administration's measures to increase security, during Season 3 Johnny and Kreese are able to waltz in to the school to recruit students for their dojos whenever they feel like it.
  • Though Johnny does try to justify it by mentioning to Miguel that he went to school there and thus would know every secret way into the school. As to why a school would have a secret way in, or never noticed his very conspicuous presence within the school once he did is another story entirely. Not to mention that it has been over 30 years since he went to school and times had changed. So how would it be easy for even the Johnny who hadn't gone to the place in a while to get in?
  • The improved security measures are a joke in and of themselves. They consist largely of metal dectors and bag-checks, neither of which would have made an difference in the fight since it was a karate brawl with no weapons (except Tory's spiked bracelet, which she should never have been allowed to wear to school, enhanced security or no). What the school needs is security officers trained in de-escalation and physical confrontation, but the board is either too cheap or too clueless to go that route. Metal detectors and bag checks are, in this case, little more than something the school can point concerned parents toward and say "See? We're doing something!"
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: The first episode gives us a flashback of events from Johnny's perspective to the original film. At his lowest point, he remembers the events as being the Big Man on Campus with a loving girlfriend and it all went downhill the moment Daniel moved into town. Daniel proceeded to move in on his girl, get his karate teacher to beat up Johnny and his friends, and suffered a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Kreese after he lost in the tournament to Daniel. Naturally since this flashback is from Johnny's perspective, there's definitely a self-serving element to it. The spin-off comic elaborates on this, showing how Johnny's troubled home life and Kreese's teachings did little to help the situation, but framing it as a story he's telling his students to motivate them for the All-Valley.
  • Season 3 does this for Kreese himself, showing how a relatively well meaning young man would eventually morph into the vile psychopath he is in present day.

T

• Taking the Fight Outside:
  • Inverted when Johnny and Daniel are squaring up to fight, only for Amanda to defuse the situation with some deadpan snark, asking them if they'd rather come in and talk it through over breakfast instead of beating the crud out of each other. Daniel promptly asks Johnny, "Wanna go inside?", and Johnny grudgingly replies, "I could eat."
  • Inverted again in a Season 1 Deleted Scene when some Brazilian Jujitsu instructors catch Johnny handing out flyers for his dojo outside their school. One thing quickly leads to another, and the head instructor challenges Johnny to come inside so they can settle this on the mat. Johnny retorts that he's okay with fighting on concrete.
  • Later, Johnny and Daniel plan to go into his home dojo to have one friendly match to lay their rivalry to rest. Too bad Robby is in there to accidentally pour some lemon juice on it.
  • In Season 2, when Daniel and Johnny find themselves coincidentally having a date night in the same restaurant, the infamous Crane Kick comes up again. Daniel accuses Johnny of just being jealous that Daniel's leg can go that high, Johnny half-jokingly retorts that they can go out to the parking lot and see whose leg goes higher.
• The Team: The kids in the combined "Miyagi-Fang" dojo form a very effective one that ultimately succeeds where their parents and senseis failed by uncovering the evidence to destroy Silver's reputation and take down Cobra Kai. Miguel Diaz is the best fighter and the one who rallies the rest of his teammates — explicitly shown when he has them "Protect the Egg" (Anthony LaRusso and the iPad) in the Final Battle at Terry Silver's Flagship Cobra Kai dojo. Robby Keene is Miguel's ultimate Foil, his former rival and the most recent defect from Cobra Kai at the start of the season. He re-joins Miyagi-Do to atone for his mistakes and tries to get his former Cobra Kai teammates (particularly Kenny) to do the same. Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz is the recent All-Valley champ and the male representative of the Sekai Taikai qualifier who still show signs of a Fight Magnet (particularly with Kenny and Kyler), despite embracing more of Miyagi-Do's teachings. He's still a Genius Bruiser when he helps Demetri hack the server in Silver's flagship dojo in the Final Battle. Demetri Alexopolous is a pop-cultured geek who takes his other talents with tech to the next level by working as a Tech Town employee and using his experience to hack the server's in Silver's flagship dojo. Samantha LaRusso is an Action Girl and the dojo's sole female member (at first) who plays a critical role in having the Miyagi-Fangs qualify for the Sekai Taikai by defeating Devon Lee in the exhibition bout. Anthony LaRusso is the youngest team member and a Non-Action Guy, but plays a vital role in convincing everyone to work together and uses his tech skills to expose Silver's corruption to the Cobra Kai students. Chris is a Gentle Giant who tends to lose most of his fights but provides some comic relief. Mitch is allied with the dojo out of convenience instead of any moral reason and ultimately betrays the team. Bert and Nathaniel are the two physically smallest members and are inseparable despite insulting each other all the time. Tory Nichols joins the Miyagi-Fangs in the season finale close to the Final Battle, using her keycard to help the others enter the flagship dojo. The team is rounded out by various assorted dojo members who lack much characterization but prove more than capable in group fights.
• Technician Versus Performer: This ends up defining the difference between Daniel's Miyagi-Do Karate and Johnny's Cobra Kai. Daniel wants to teach traditional Okinawan Karate with a heavy emphasis on discipline, knowledge and skill. Johnny is focused on high energy Tang Soo Do full of theatrics with the promise of becoming badass.
• Teens Are Monsters:
  • Season 1: Kyler and Yasmine to a T. They have no problem hurting others just For the Evulz. Yasmine especially gets her rocks off fat-shaming Aisha on social media. Kyler, meanwhile, gets his jollies routinely harassing Miguel, Demetri, and Eli simply for existing, and slut-shaming Sam when she attacks him for trying to rape her in a theater.
  • Season 2: Tory. She thinks nothing of not only assaulting Sam on school property — with spiked knuckles, no less — but she hijacks the school's intercom system to announce threats to Sam first.
  • Season 3: While Yasmine has all but distanced herself from this trope (even going so far as to have a relationship with Demetri), Kyler becomes even worse. He accepts an invitation from Kreese to try out for a spot at Cobra Kai, with the intention of making himself an even stronger bully; however, he knows now not to cross Hawk after seeing how Brucks fared and only engages Miguel because he's still recovering from a brutal injury. That leaves only Demetri, whose arm sling proves the ideal canvas for making a full-sized drawing of a penis and being a laughingstock at school.
• Tell Me How You Fight:
  • In season 1, Kyler doesn't engage without his Gang of Bullies around, indicating his gutlessness and lack of skill. Even when he joins Cobar Kai in season 3, he continues to be this, as he only goes after Miguel while acting as a member of Tory's gang and while Miguel isn't 100% recovered from his injuries in the school brawl...and still loses anyway.
  • Yasmine uses psychological tactics like text messages and innuendo. She also has no issues ordering others to do her dirty work or calling them cowards for refusing. Bottom line, she's a Dirty Coward who can easily be stopped cold with one blow (or wedgie).
• The Bus Came Back: Yasmine comes back to the show for the third season, as do Kyler and Brucks.
• Thicker Than Water:
  • Deconstructed in Season 1. As Amanda points out, Daniel only hired his cousin Louie to work at his car dealership because they were related and Daniel's mother insisted on always looking out for family. Except Louie is a terrible employee, pulling mean-spirited and potentially illegal pranks at work, making deals using Daniel's name without his permission, and causing an absolute nightmare for Daniel when he brings a bunch of biker thugs around to Johnny's apartment who burn his car, for which Daniel finally fires him.
  • Reconstructed in Season 3. Louie proves his Undying Loyalty to the LaRussos by being the first person to check up on Sam when she's hospitalized after the brawl in the Season 2 finale. Out of desperation, they rehire him as the brawl has ruined the dealership's reputation, and Louie grabs his second chance with both hands. He knuckles down and does his job properly, and (especially once Anoush is rehired) actually turns out to be competent when he isn't wasting time pulling immature pranks.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!:
  • Season 1: Aisha rips Yasmine a good one — by means of a super painful wedgie.
    "No mercy, bitch!"
  • Season 2: Tory starts the final brawl by calling out Sam.
    "I'm coming for you, bitch!"
  • Season 3:
    • Tory again calls Sam out after bringing reinforcements during the battle at the abandoned laser tag arena.
      "Sam LaRusso! Where are you, bitch?"
    • Shawn Payne gives one in the form of a mocking respite after unplugging Robby's computer.
      "You got lucky this time...bitch."
  • Season 4:
    • Sam uses Tory's own threat against her which was the same thing Tory said to her over the intercom before starting the school brawl in the Season 2 finale.
      "I'm coming for you, bitch!"
• This Is Gonna Suck: In episode 6, when Demetri questions Johnny's teaching style in his snarky way ("He does realize the Nazis lost the war, right?"), Miguel has this look for almost the entire exchange — and for good reason, as Johnny quickly humiliates Demetri in front of the whole class.
• This Means War!: Two specific moments from Season 2:
  • When Johnny shows to Kreese Daniel's YouTube Miyagi-Do ad that calls Cobra Kai students "snakes in the grass".
    Kreese: This is an act of war. It demands an immediate response!
  • When Daniel discovers the vandalism of his dojo, he never actually says "This means war!", but that moment is the start of him going off the deep end against Cobra Kai.
• Threaten All to Find One: In the second season of Cobra Kai, some students from the new Cobra Kai dojo ransack and vandalize Daniel's dojo, including stealing the Medal of Honor that was awarded to Daniel's deceased mentor Mr. Miyagi. Johnny Lawrence punishes his entire dojo by making them do high-intensity exercises, stating he'll only stop when someone confesses to being responsible.
• Thriving Ex-Crush: Played With. In the 30+ years since the events of The Karate Kid, Johnny's remained a dead-end loser who peaked in high school and never left LA, while his old girlfriend Ali has gone on to become a pediatric surgeon in Denver. They reconnect at the end of Season 3, and Johnny confesses that he feels like he wasted his life compared to her. Ali replies that her life hasn't been without mistakes and that her marriage is on the rocks.
• Thug Dojo: And unintentional, at that. Johnny wants his Cobra Kai students to stand up for themselves and kick ass, but he isn't keen on them becoming the bullying jerkasses that he and the rest of John Kreese's generation of Cobra Kai were. He fails so hard at the latter that Kreese himself shows up to congratulate him. Even worse, Season 2 ends with Kreese hitting the Reset Button on Cobra Kai on all fronts, and he makes it more of a thug dojo by seeking out known thugs like Kyler to fill his ranks.
• Toilet Humor: While it is Daniel rather than Johnny who commits most of the petty acts in their feud, Johnny still can't resist the temptation to vandalize Daniel's billboard — by spray-painting a giant dick in his arch-rival's mouth. Everyone but Daniel laughs it off, revealing that even after a life of success, he still has more to learn about overcoming his insecurities. The stunt also leads to Sam being further bullied at school in light of her having rejected Kyler's unwanted advances.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Interestingly involves opposing fighters: Tory, an unashamed drinker who favors flat sneakers and dark plaid motifs; and Sam, a sober creature with a thing for bright or pastel motifs and slightly-raised boots.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Miguel started the series as a skinny, awkward kid with the complete inability to stand up for himself. After a few weeks of training his confidence improved, but became a detriment as he ended up trying to fight multiple people at once in an enclosed space. A few more weeks of training and a more advantageous situation, he was able to fight off the same four people at once.
  • After spending Season 3 terrified of Tory, Sam gets her second wind when Tory breaks a picture of Mr. Miyagi, giving her the resolve to fight back with a staff and disarm Tory of her nunchucks.
  • Sam spends seasons 2 and 3 being more openly willing to stand up for the people she cares about, rather than be a bystander or keep important relationships a secret from her parents.
  • Anthony goes from being a Lazy Bum to The Heart for the Miyagi Fang alliance in Season 5 and helps them pass Chozen test and expose Terry Silver.
  • Demetri over the course of the series goes from a complete, passive-aggressive wuss who was near intolerable to be around and had no physical ability whatsoever, to one of the best fighters of either dojo who also starts taking zero crap from anyone openly. By the end of Season 3 he's one of the true leaders of Miyagi-Do instead of only being one by default.
  • Hawk is arguably the most pronounced example in the series. He goes from being considered a nerd and a freak by everyone around him who was afraid to even say a single word to anyone, to a legitimately tough and intimidating guy who can kick some serious ass. Johnny even went on a speech about becoming badass and used the newly transformed Hawk as an example when doing so back in season one. Just compare his fear and submissiveness towards Kyler and his thugs back in the first few episodes to him beating Brucks to a pulp and scaring the hell out of Kyler in season three.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • Johnny originally restarted Cobra Kai to spite Daniel and reclaim his dignity, but eventually starts expressing sincere affection and encouragement for his students, even going as far as to claim (in front of Daniel, no less) that his students have made a difference in his life. He doesn't take it well when his star pupil, Miguel, devolves into the ruthless, dirty fighter Johnny himself used to be.
  • A consistent theme of the series is that with the exception of Kreese and Terry Silver, as of Season 5 all of Daniel's former enemies have become better people and found ways to move on from the attitudes and behaviors that made them antagonists in the films.
  • Miguel weans himself away from the darker side of the Cobra Kai teachings as Season 2 progresses, and in Season 3, completely distances himself from his friends in Cobra Kai upon finding what they've been doing under Kreese's leadership. This earns him a second shot at a relationship with Sam, who is happy to see him back to his old self again.
  • Yasmine mellows out considerably in Season 3 after Aisha front-wedgied her in Season 1, turning her into a laughing stock. This allows her to experience what she herself was doing to others, and even shows sympathy to Demetri after Kyler vandalizes his arm cast. They later hook up, much to both of their surprises, and the relationship even carries over into Season 4.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • Daniel comes across as being a bit more of a dick than the films. Though it's only in his dealings with Johnny and being completely unable to not see him as the same Johnny from when they where kids (though this was initially averted; Daniel only began to suspect Johnny of being the same when he started Cobra Kai.) This does ultimately help him explain to Robby how being Johnny's son doesn't make their problems the same, and that he should be more willing to forgive his father over what made him the way he is. Still, pulling strings to increase the rent on an ''entire strip mall'' just because the guy you dislike is legally operating there is a pretty dick move; Daniel-san must have taken notes from Sato Toguchi and Terry Silver. Plus, when Sam tries telling him how several of her classmates (including her current boyfriend) are in Cobra Kai and aren't bad people, he dismisses this, tells her that anyone associated with Cobra Kai is bad and implores her to stay away from them. It takes him walking in on Sam making out with Miguel, and her making clear Miguel is someone she's willing to fight for even if it means siding against her dad, to get Daniel to actually sit down and get to know Miguel.
  • His mother Lucille has taken a level as well as she criticizes everything Amanda does when hosting dinner and admonishes her for making completely justified complaints about Louie's work behavior.
  • By the end of Season 1, every named character in Cobra Kai has taken several, with Hawk and Miguel being the most pronounced. Johnny isn't exactly proud of causing this, feeling Miguel has become a new version of his old self.
  • Tory gets this in Season 3. In Season 2 while she had a hot temper and a willingness to do as she wished, it was tempered with her legitimate love for Miguel and her loyalty to her friends at Cobra Kai. Even in Season 3 she opens by being a good caregiver to her ill mother and working towards her GED (as she got expelled for starting the school brawl) and working two jobs to pay rent. Unfortunately, her guilt from the school brawl, Kreese picking the right spot to help her in her predicament because he needs her as a soldier for his dojo, Miguel's poor choice of words in their only conversation of the season and the discovery that Miguel and Sam are working together and potentially rekindling their relationship sends her off the deep end completely. She is more than willing to break into Daniel's house to destroy everyone there and try to beat the shit out of Sam with nunchucks (showing that she's willing to upgrade from a improvised weapon, to a legit deadly one, but at least Sam was fighting back that time).
  • Robby has improved his life greatly under the LaRussos' tutelage and hospitality, but due to perceiving Daniel as betraying him by turning him over to the cops, he lets himself become susceptible to Kreese's teachings, and comes to join Cobra Kai upon getting out of juvie.
• Toothy Bird: In Season 3, Johnny Lawrence decides to counter Kreese taking over Cobra Kai by starting a dojo named after a snake's natural predator: Eagle Fang Karate! With the motto "Bite like an eagle".
• Toxic Friend Influence:
  • Sam is a Nice Girl, but her friendship with Yasmine causes her to alienate her old friend Aisha and to abandon her old interests like science.
  • Hawk might not have actually goaded Miguel to take a swing at Robby... but if it weren't for all the booze Hawk brought to the party, maybe Miguel could have reacted more rationally to seeing Robby and Sam together.
• Tragic Villain: Hoo boy...where do we begin with these?
  • While he's no longer a villain by the opening episode, the series goes very in-depth to humanizing the bully from The Karate Kid that was Johnny Lawrence. Just why did he join Cobra Kai exactly? He needed a platform to boost his morale in wake of his bullying from his stepfather, Sid. And he manages to find a father-figure in deranged sensei, John Kreese. But even Kreese becomes an enemy to Lawrence after the former nearly chokes him to death because the latter lost the All-Valley. Which puts Lawrence into a downward spiral that took 34 years to find his groove again in re-opening Cobra Kai.
  • A much more straight example is Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz. A former nerd who is relentlessly bullied because of a scar from a surgery to fix his cleft lip, Eli undergoes a radical transformation to become "Hawk" after Johnny tells him to "flip the script." While it does wonders in boosting Hawk's confidence, this in turn leads him into becoming a Jerkass, which thankfully culminates in his Heel–Face Turn during the LaRusso House Fight.
  • Tory Nichols. She may be a mentally-ill psycho, but you can't help but feel sorry for her because of her poor living situation, her nasty streak with her predatory landlord, and the fact that she's literally the breadwinner of her family since her mother is bedridden with dialysis and her father abandoned them. When she finally gets a taste of victory in Season 4 (albeit as an anti-hero), it's all for naught because a certain, sleazy businessman bribed the ref to give her an unfair advantage.
  • Robby Keene as well. The poor guy was neglected by his parents for the majority of his life, and it's only made much worse when poor timing (as well as poor communication kills) gives him the perception that the father who abandoned him throughout his childhood loves Miguel more. As if life couldn't be harder for him, he winds up in juvie (with the perception that he felt betrayed by the LaRussos), and willingly joins a Kreese & Silver-led Cobra Kai, only for it to backfire on him when a fellow student taken under his wing becomes a psychopathic bully.
  • The Payne brothers deserve so much better.
    • Shawn Payne is put to prison because he beat an old friend up pretty badly. But why exactly was he doing it? Said friend was breaking into the household and attacking his brother, Kenny.
    • Speaking of Kenny, he's the latest example of a former victim-turned bully by joining Cobra Kai after being relentlessly picked on by his peers. The fact that all of this happened while he was still in middle school makes it all the more heartbreaking.
  • While still villainous, the show does plenty to humanize the two Cobra Kai co-founders.
    • John Kreese. Yes, the deranged-sensei became a deranged-sensei, because he was actually another bully victim with a rough childhood, who joins the army only to be PTSD-ridden when he finds out his girlfriend was killed in a car crash and his commanding officer betrays him. Him having his infamous "Strike First, Strike Hard, No-Mercy" was because his experience in the war warped his "cruel world" beliefs that he wanted to install on his students. And when he does have a sense of hope for humanity due to his care for Johnny Lawrence and Tory Nichols, all of this is for naught when his best friend and war buddy, Terry Silver, betrays him.
    • Speaking of Silver, yes, the sleazy businessman who hired Mike Barnes and tortured Daniel LaRusso is also a villain warped by tragedy. It all makes sense with his cartoonish behavior in The Karate Kid Part III being a result of him using cocaine to distract him from PTSD. And when he spends many years becoming a better person after his champion loses to LaRusso in the 1985 All-Valley, all of this is broken when Kreese pushes his buttons to recruit him into re-joining Cobra Kai. It gets much worse when Silver becomes more psychopathic when Kreese continues to push more of his PTSD buttons, to the point where Silver becomes the series' Big Bad by betraying Kreese and turning Cobra Kai into a franchise of thug dojos.
• Trailers Always Lie:
  • The trailers for Season 3 imply are large part of it will focus on Daniel and Johnny teaming up to take down Kreese. While this does happen, it's not until the season finale. Their initial team up was to find Robby after he went on the run and the partnership goes south fairly quickly.. The trailers also imply that Hawk will beat up Kyler since one scene shows Hawk looking back at Kyler in the Cobra Kai dojo and another shows Hawk in the dojo beating down an unseen person. The person was Brucks.
  • The trailers for Season 5 heavily implied that Mike Barnes would be returning to work with Terry Silver and serve as another antagonist to Daniel. Turns out Mike had long pulled a Heel–Face Turn since the events of ''The Karate Kid Part III, hasn't seen Silver since the events of the film, and has no interest in working with him again. He actually winds up teaming up with Daniel, Johnny, and Chozen to defeat him and Cobra Kai after Silver burns down his business because he told Daniel the name of Silver's lawyer.
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • The trailers for Season 2 made no secret of Demetri joining Miyagi-Do.
  • The teaser trailer for Season 3 is even worse, showing that Miguel wakes up from his coma and Robby was sent to juvie for injuring him. The poster art for season 3 also gave away that Johnny would start Eagle Fang.
  • Season 4 didn't even have to do a trailer but decided right off the bat to announce Terry Silver's return.
• Training from Hell: Johnny takes this approach for Miguel, including a sequence where he forces Miguel to unlearn his instinctive reflex to use his arms first when fighting — by pushing him into a pool with his hands bound. Not that Johnny lets up when his dojo becomes full of new students — he openly mocks the ones who smack to him of being losers or "pussies" (which is nearly all of them), singles out and humiliates the ones who complain, and orders a ''face-punching exercise'' when they flinch too much. He eventually lightens up, but even in the week leading up to the tournament, his training includes exercises like running from angry dogs. The Cobra Kai fighters' performance at the tournament speaks for itself — for both better and worse.
• Training Montage: We see Cobra Kai and Miyagi-do training sessions frequently. Their different styles are often contrasted by intercutting between them in the same montage.
• True Companions: Most of the Cobras, especially Miguel, Aisha and Hawk. Even in Season 2, after Miguel and Hawk have a hellacious fight during a training session which got emotionally charged when it's revealed Hawk was the one who trashed Miyagi-Do and stole Miyagi's Medal of Honor, Hawk simply states "We were enemies for one day, but we're Cobra Kai for life." and that's the end of any animosity between the two for the rest of the season.
  • It's this very thing that lays the groundwork for Hawk's eventual Heel–Face Turn. He still regularly visits Miguel in the hospital and is friendly with him at school. Even as Miguel openly rebels against Cobra Kai he never goes very far in antagonizing him and notably avoids fighting him during the Season Finale. In fact, it was Kyler starting to gain the upper hand on Miguel that starts getting him to realize what he's been doing.
• Two Girls to a Team: Aisha and Tory are the only female members of Cobra Kai in season 2. (Aisha was the Smurfette in the first season.)
  • Piper and Tory are the two named girls in Cobra Kai's tournament team in Season 4.
  • While there are nameless girls in Season 5 Cobra Kai, Tory and Devon are the only named ones.
• Twofer Token Minority: Among the Cobra Kai who actually have a character arc, Aisha is the only one who is female and black. Devon is the only female and the only Asian in Eagle Fang in season 4.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: The two main storylines of the show center around Johnny and Daniel, which parallel each other in many ways. Other characters have their own subplots that intersect with one or the other, but this contrast underlines the entire show. In specific episodes, one might focus a little on one side at the moment, but the following episode will switch to balance it out.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: While Cobra Kai manages to restore most of its good standing through Miguel's performance at the All-Valley tournament, Kreese comes back, and spends all of Season 2 usurping control of the dojo from Johnny. By the end of the season, he's succeeded, and reverted the dojo back to its old ways. By the end of season 4, Kreese gets sidelined by Terry Silver, who is a more cerebral type of tyrant, but even nastier.

U-Y

• Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: Played for Drama in the Season 2 finale. When Johnny and Daniel meet at the hospital elevator after the school brawl that left Sam scarred and Miguel in a coma, neither of them speaks a word or even looks at the other.
  • Terry Silver has a very menacing one with Johnny and Carmen in season 5.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • At one point, Johnny accuses Miyagi of assaulting him and his friends unprovoked. He forgets that the same man he's accusing of assault intervened when Kreese started choking him, as the second movie would reveal.
  • Throughout Season 4, Kreese acts like this to Terry Silver. No matter how much Silver tries to help Kreese with a drama that has nothing to do with him, Kreese continues to bring up the snake pit incident during their time in Vietnam to have a psychological grip over Silver to keep him in line rather than see him as an equal partner. This comes back to bite him as Silver becomes so fed up, he frames Kreese to get him arrested and usurp Cobra Kai.
• Un-Reboot: This is a distant sequel to the original The Karate Kid (1984). While the second film and even the maligned third film are still considered canon, no mention is yet made on-screen of The Next Karate Kid (although the producers confirmed it is canon in interviews) and the only way that The Karate Kid (2010) could still be considered canon is by way of Celebrity Paradox, as Jackie Chan is established to exist in the TV series, or it's a fictionalization of Daniel's actual life somehow.
• Unreliable Narrator: Ali of all people returns to give Daniel and Johnny a reality check. Neither version of their past together is entirely accurate and they're both fairly equally responsible for the problems that have occurred over the course of the series. That, and teaming up against Kreese, is what allows them to finally set aside their nonsense and reconcile.
• Unreliable Voiceover:
  • Some of Johnny's narration spoken over original The Karate Kid clips of Daniel and him mixing it up portray him in a much more innocent or less aggressive light than what's on screen.
  • Innocent little Bert tells his teammates he was "buying...milk" at the mini-mart in the Season 1 finale "Mercy", while we see him actually slapping the latest issue of Big & Bootylicious on the counter (featuring the "42 Phattest Cabooses").
  • Season 4 Episode 5 of Cobra Kai have Johnny and Daniel reflect on how the other is a bad influence and the cause of their problems during their Training Montage. While some of their flashbacks are justified, other flashbacks leave out how they were part of the problem, and they only remembered the part where they were the victim.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Despite being separated and dating other people, Sam and Miguel spend Season 2 pining for one another, and end up resolving it in Season 3.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Just the tip of the iceberg here.
  • Right off the bat, the entire series is more or less kicked off by Daniel commenting to Johnny that they're all "better off without" Cobra Kai. This apparently gives Johnny the epiphany that the best times he had were in Cobra Kai, prompting him to start it up again. Had Daniel not made that comment, all of the later fallout might not have happened.
  • Season 1: Sam's reluctance to tell her parents about dating Miguel leads to his mild insecurities which grow when Robby eats dinner with them. Then when her lie about the car accident catches up to her, Amanda confiscates her phone which means she cannot return Miguel's messages, which leads to more insecurities which ultimately result in his drunken rage and his accidental strike against Sam, ending their relationship and cementing Miguel's turn towards the dark side. Had Amanda let Sam text Miguel to say "Hey, I'm grounded and won't be able to talk to you for a day or two," things wouldn't have gotten so far.
  • Season 2: Unlike Season 1 where a lot of the above were just really unfortunate miscommunications on top of really terrible timing, Sam isn't as blameless. After getting drunk and getting mad at Robby, she kisses Miguel upon finding out he returned Miyagi's medal of honor, and Miguel kisses her back. An enraged Tory sees this and decides to pick a fight with her at school. At the same time, trying to hide Sam from her parents while drunk leads to Robby taking the blame and getting disowned by Daniel. Between finding out about the kiss and having his relationship with Daniel wrecked, Robby is in a terrible emotional state during the brawl, causing him to hit Miguel when his guard was down and knock him off a second story landing. Miguel ends up in the hospital, Robby goes to juvie and never gets a chance to smooth over trying to deny Miguel credit for returning the medal, Daniel has to temporarily shut down Miyagi-Do, Kreese gets an opening to seize control of Cobra Kai, and he eventually is able to manipulate Robby into joining Cobra Kai.
    • You could argue that Moon might be more culpable here. If she hadn't invited both Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai to the same party, Sam wouldn't have gotten so wasted trying to one-up Tory and leading to the above happening.^note Though the school fight likely would've still happened no matter what Moon did, since Tory hated Sam enough that if it wasn't Miguel cheating on her with Sam, it would be some other perceived slight by Sam that Tory would use to justify instigating the brawl All because Moon wanted to heal the chakras of both sides or whatever. The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid:
  • By the end of Season 1, many of the nice, downtrodden students who joined Cobra Kai have become rather vicious bullies. Even those who aren't outright bullies have become increasingly aggressive and belligerent.
  • Flashbacks reveal that Johnny was once just a normal, impressionable kid whose rough home life led him down a dark path.
  • Of all the people in the Karate Kid franchise, Kreese and Silver were this in their youth. Their experience in the Vietnam War and loss of a cherished teammate and in Kreese's case, the woman he loved, warped them to become the Ax-Crazy men they are today.
  • Kenny Payne in Season 4. Starts out an outgoing nerd who loves anime and video games, turns into a scared victim after being relentlessly bullied at his new school (most notably by Anthony LaRusso and his clique), joins Cobra Kai to learn to defend himself, and ends up a violent thug who is absolutely chomping at the bit to make Anthony's life a living hell once they get to high school, this being right after Anthony apologizes to him.
• Vanity License Plate:
  • While giving his Cool Car an even cooler paint job, Johnny picks up a license plate that reads "COBRAKAI".
  • The car Silver lends to Robby and Tory so they can go to the prom - and where they spend some time together after the party - has a license plate that reads "QUIKSLVR", which is also a Call-Back to the Quick Silver method he taught Daniel in the third film.
• Victory Pose: When Hawk advances in the tournament, he yells toward the sky, arms akimbo and fists clenched, then removes his gi and flexes his shoulders to make the hawk tattoo on his back "flap its wings."
• Wall of Weapons:
  • Kreese keeps various weapons mounted on the walls at Cobra Kai. To Amanda, this just more evidence of how messed up he is, despite Daniel having a few bō staff and a pair of nunchucks in the Miyagi-Do dojo.
  • Terry Silver has two: One in his residence and one in his flagship dojo.
• Watch the Paint Job: The catalyst for Johnny intervening on the side of Miguel is when Kyler violently pushes him into Johnny's flashy red sports car. One thing leads to another and Johnny ends up kicking all their asses.
• Wax On, Wax Off:
  • With the movie series being the Trope Namer, this is clearly referenced with Daniel having gone on to own an auto dealership (in the YouTube interface pausing the series causes a hand to appear wiping a "Wax On" text, pushing Play again has the hand wipe a "Wax off" text).
  • When Daniel starts training Robby he has him do a bunch of chores around the dealership in a certain way just like Mr. Miyagi did to him, and just like with Daniel, Robby is pretty pissed at having to do chores instead of learning to fight before being shown he was learning Karate. Amanda accuses him (apparently not without cause) of enjoying being on the other end of the trope a bit too much.
    • Daniel holds to this principle when opening Miyagi-Do to other students. The first thing he invites them to do is painting a fence, and many scoff at him for trying to get free labor and leave (in the original movie it was implied Miyagi used it to test Daniel's patience and obedience). Daniel's own son Anthony, who was showing more interest in karate than ever before, declines an invitation to train with Sam and Robby because he knows Daniel is going to have him do chores.
    • Demetri does recognize the purpose of the menial actions building muscle memories, but he whines the whole time and just wants to see the cool stuff. He's reluctant to learn at all and is on the verge of quitting when Daniel takes pity and changes his approach.
  • Averted for laughs in season four. After he and Johnny team together, Daniel shows up at Mr. Miyagi's house with his old-style sanding pads, clearly ready to put his students through the "sand floor" chore training... only to find that Johnny had shown up early with an industrial floor sander and worked the sparring deck to a mirror sheen.
  • Johnny's training style averts this entirely. He's always completely up front about what he's teaching and the purpose of any exercises he's ordering, which is a major contrast with Miyagi-do's use of this trope. He uses Miguel for manual labor, cleaning up the place and getting it somewhat appealing to potential customers, but it's payment for otherwise free training and not specifically to help Miguel build muscle. Miguel even asks if there is a specific way he wants the windows cleaned and Johnny says "I don't give a shit."
• Weak, but Skilled: At the All-Valley Tournament at the end of Season 1, most of the Cobra Kai did remarkably well because Johnny focused on getting a fire in them that made them more aggressive and aware of opponents weak points. Thus many other participants seemed to be so focused on flashy, energy wasting moves they left themselves open to attack. This is both a comparison and contrast to Robby who, like Daniel before him, learned a hyper efficient moveset that made it seem like every action was calmly practiced beforehand.
• Webcomic Time: Much like the original film series, which spent five years to show roughly one year in the characters' lives, the show does not align with the real world timeline. The first season takes place over roughly one school year, the second season takes place over the summer and ends on the first day of the next school year and Season 3 is similarly only over a few months, starting two weeks after the previous season finale and ending right before Christmas. By the fifth season finale, about two and a half years have passed in the show while production has spanned six years. In particular Xolo Maridueña, who plays Miguel, is noticeably several years older by the time Season 3 comes around. And by season 4, Griffin Santopietro (who plays Daniel's son Anthony) is downright unrecognizable and has actually started to resemble his onscreen father, Ralph Macchio.
• Wedgie: Aisha delivers a very painful Melvin (front wedgie) to Yasmine that ends up going viral on social media.
• We Used to Be Friends:
  • Aisha and Sam when the latter starts hanging out with Yasmine and her Girl Posse, who mercilessly taunt Aisha. They patch things up at the end of Season 1, but their different martial arts prevent them from ever becoming close again.
  • Seen with the "nerds" clique of Miguel, Eli, and Demetri.
    • Demetri tries to stay friends with Miguel and Eli, but as the two of them fall deeper into Cobra Kai, Demetri tries to bridge the gap, only to end up needing to join Miyagi-Do and becoming Hawk's enemy, culminating with Demetri shoving Hawk into the trophy case during the final confrontation of Season 2. While Demetri and Miguel do end up staying friends (despite minimal interaction in season 2), Demetri and Hawk get on MUCH worse in Season 3, being openly antagonistic of each other. Likewise, Miguel cuts ties with Hawk as he wants nothing to do with Kreese and is pissed off about Hawk breaking Demetri's arm and seemingly being okay with Kyler joining Cobra Kai (since Kyler's bullying of the three was why they took up karate). However, thanks to some well-placed words and regrets, Hawk finally has his Heel–Face Turn at the end of the Season and all three are once again friends within the Miyagi-Do / Eagle Fang alliance.
  • Mitch and Chris were friends who joined Cobra Kai, but Chris doesn't like the cruelty, so defects with several other Cobra Kai to join Miyagi-Do. In Season 3 they reconcile when Eagle Fang and Miyagi-Do merge.
  • Averted with Bert and Nate. The intensity of the rivalry between the two is similar to Demetri and Hawk, and Mitch and Chris, but the two do not appear to know each other outside their feuding dojos.
• Wham Line: After the tournament at the end of the first season, Demetri says: "I respect the safety-in-numbers aspect of joining a gang." This fails to be a Heel Realization for Miguel, though.
• Wham Shot:
  • Season 1: The last episode ends with Johnny quietly contemplating his hollow victory at the All Valley tournament, when a man enters the dojo and congratulates him on his success. As he tells him that Cobra Kai's return was just beginning, John Kreese comes out of the shadows.
  • Season 2: The last episode ends with Johnny abandoning his smartphone. As he walks away, a notification pops up on it — a Facebook friend request from Ali Mills Schwarber.
  • Season 3: The last episode ends with Daniel starting the next Miyagi-Do lesson... as Miguel and the rest of Eagle Fang suddenly walk in, followed by Johnny. The two senseis bow to each other and start the lesson for their new merged dojo.
  • Season 4: The last episode ends with Daniel at Mr. Miyagi's grave, seemingly asking his former mentor to help him find a way to defeat Cobra Kai... as it is revealed he was actually talking to Chozen, who agrees and bows to Miyagi's gravestone together with Daniel.
• Wham Episode: Vast majority of them are midseason or Season Finale.
  • Season 1:
    • Episode 5 — Counterbalance: Miguel makes good use of his Cobra Kai training to take down Kyler and his Gang of Bullies. This goes viral to the point where the dojo itself has a spike increase in new students. Cobra Kai (and Johnny too) are back in business!
    • Episode 10 — Mercy: Miguel wins the All-Valley, but everyone including Miguel himself has turned Cobra Kai into the Thug Dojo that Johnny has feared. Meanwhile, Daniel decides to re-open the Miyagi-Do dojo, Sam gets back into karate, and John Kreese makes his unexpected return.
  • Season 2:
    • Episode 5 — All In: Hawk and Demetri's friendship fractures completely, as the former becomes nothing more than a bully to him. Hawk leading a vandalization the Miyagi-Do dojo is what results in a mass Heel–Face Turn of numerous Cobra Kais defecting to Miyagi-Do, effectively establishing the Rival Dojos dynamic.
    • Episode 10 — No Mercy: Perhaps the biggest Wham Episode of them all. The result of the West Valley School Brawl is catastrophic. Miguel is in a coma and on death's door after Robby kicks him down a railing, Robby himself is on the run from the police, Sam is also hospitalized and suffers from PTSD, Daniel is forced to shut down Miyagi-Do, and Kreese reveals his takeover of Cobra Kai and sways Johnny's students toward his side. Johnny defects from Cobra Kai entirely.
  • Season 3:
    • Episode 5 — Miyagi-Do: Daniel reunites with his acquaintances from Okinawa, which culminates in him making peace with a fully-reformed Chozen and his business being saved via Karmic Jackpot from Yuna. Miguel is able to move his legs again after attending a Dee Snider concert with Johnny.
    • Episode 10 — December 19: Hawk defects from Cobra Kai and fully makes peace with Demetri. Daniel and Johnny realize the only way to stop Kreese and Cobra Kai is to merge dojos. Robby is fully corrupted as Cobra Kai's top student. Kreese's backstory has him completely embracing the "no mercy" mindset after kicking his captain to his death at the pit of snakes. Oh, and he also re-recruits Terry Silver back into the fold.
  • Season 4:
    • Episode 5 — Match Point: Hawk loses his mohawk after Robby and the Cobra Kais ambush him. Daniel and Johnny's tournament style fight ends in a draw, which culminates in them splitting dojos due to lingering tensions.
    • Episode 10 — The Rise: Eli wins the All-Valley tournament, fully completing his arc from a bullied nerd, to The Bully, to finally a balanced karateka who doesn't need a mohawk to be a competent fighter. However, Cobra Kai wins the All-Valley, but Silver takes it a step further by betraying Kreese and resuming his plan of turning the dojo into a franchise. Robby and Tory become disillusioned with the dojo, albeit for different reasons. Having enough of Cobra Kai's corrupting influence in the valley, Daniel goes all the way to recruit Chozen in resuming his campaign.
  • Season 5
    • Episode 5 — Extreme Measures: Robby and Miguel finally bury the hatchet after a grueling battle instigated by Johnny. Amanda learns of Daniel's past with Silver from Jessica Andrews, and finally accepts the fact that Silver is a threat. Johnny later joins in the campaign against Silver.
    • Episode 10 — Head of the Snake: Tory, having enough of Cobra Kai's abuse towards her, fully defects from the dojo and joins the Miyagi-Fangs. Silver is exposed as a fraud for cheating in the All-Valley as all of his students turn on him. Daniel gives Silver a well-deserved No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, which culminates in his defeat and arrest. However, Kreese is revealed to have escaped from prison.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The fate of DynaTox Industries, the toxic waste disposal company Silver was in charge of during Part III, is not elaborated upon, let alone mentioned by name, at any point in the series. Though, this trope gets lost with the extended cut of Terry's conversation with Kreese at the former's balcony — the reveal that Terry lost the company after Part III, but was able to build back up with his investment toward start-up companies.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Amanda is rightfully appalled at Daniel causing the rent of the strip mall to be raised, not only for being petty to Johnny but also because of all the innocent owners also getting their rent raised.
  • Later, Sam is appalled when Miguel gets drunk at a party and takes a swing at Robby (never mind that the attack hits HER). Miguel attempts to apologize to her, but only manages to further convince her that the Cobra Kai are exactly as awful as her dad said. And she has a point — starting a fight over a girl at a beach party? Sensei Lawrence wouldn't know a thing about THAT kind of degenerate behavior.
  • At the tournament, Johnny is on the calling side of the this trope twice. The first time is when Hawk gimps Robby with an illegal attack, causing Johnny to cry "What the hell?!" at Hawk before rushing over to (attempt to) tend to Robby. The second is when Miguel proudly tells Johnny that he's found Robby's 'weakness'. Again, Johnny rebukes his student, telling him to win the "right" way, but he fails to make an impression, and Miguel proceeds to fight dirty, winning the tournament. Far from being happy with the Cobra Kai victory or seizing the opportunity to rub it in the face of his arch-rival Daniel, Johnny simply walks over and sincerely apologizes to Robby. The final scene of the season begins with Johnny drowning his sorrows while staring at his now-meaningless trophy. Season 2 opens with Johnny ripping into his students for this.
  • In "Take a Right," Johnny meets up with Cobra Kai OGs Tommy, Jimmy, and Bobby, and mentions that he and Kreese are rebuilding Cobra Kai. The others react with incredulous anger, pointing out that those of them who got anywhere in life did so in spite of Kreese's teachings, not because of them, and agreeing that the only thing that can happen is that this crop of kids turn into the same kind of Jerkass degenerates they were. The remaining episodes prove them right.
  • In the aftermath of the School Brawl, Daniel insists he won't let Cobra Kai get away with the school brawl, ignoring his own students role in escalating things. Amanda sternly tells him off that he has played a part in escalating tensions between the Dojo's and forbids him from teaching Karate. Daniel is later shown apologizing to Mr. Miyagi's portrait for failing to uphold his teachings.
• When I Was Your Age...: When Johnny learns about how Aisha is being cyberbullied, he's disturbed by the "pussy" nature of it all. In his day, you teased people to their faces, and there was honor and respect to bullying!
• Wild Teen Party:
  • Daniel's daughter Sam hosts a pool party while Daniel and the rest of his family was at the country club. Daniel is not pleased, to say the least by the fact that the guys were wearing his swimsuits.
  • Later, the Cobra Kai throw an even wilder teen party (with copious booze) on the beach to humiliate Yasmine.
  • Moon throws one at her house in Season 2 that gets so wild the cops arrive to break it up.
  • Sam pretends to throw one at her house at the end of Season 3 but it's actually a ploy to get Miyagi-do and Eagle Fang to meet up to discuss an alliance.
  • Stingray, in a continuation of his creepy Manchild attempts to be friends with a bunch of kids half his age, throws a prom after-party.
• World of Badass: By the end of Season 3, the number of significant characters who aren't highly proficient in karate could probably be counted on one hand. Lampshaded by Piper in season 4, as she admits her motivation for joining a dojo is mostly that she doesn't want to be the last person in the Valley who doesn't know karate.
• World of Jerkass: Things have not improved since the first movie.
  • Right from the outset, bullying is still a major problem and the authorities are impotent to stop it. The only teenager who isn't a jerkass (though not entirely innocent herself) is Sam, Daniel's daughter. Daniel himself takes a few levels in jerkass once the bane of his teen years goes back into business, and the bullied teens go down the path of bullying themselves thanks to Johnny's well-meaning but twisted guidance.
  • The Season 2 finale makes things even worse. A massive brawl between Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai breaks out in school, with no one (well, besides Demetri and Moon) trying to deescalate it any way. Everyone is brazenly fighting at every opportunity (Robby tries to stop it initially before getting tackled by Miguel), the students sit back and just film it on their phones, only one teacher tries to stop it (and gets his ass kicked in the process) and chaos ensues. By the end of it, absolutely no one is better off for what happened and many lives are ruined in the process.
  • In Season 3, a 1965 flashback shows two football jocks mocking a diner busboy for his mother killing herself by labeling him as a "freak" and then tripping him up with a tray of dishes in his hands. Everyone present (except the jock's girlfriend) laugh at him and his boss shakes his head at him unsympathetically. The busboy turns out to be a young John Kreese!
  • On a broader level, almost every bit character without a name is going to be rudely indifferent at best, and an outright jackass at worst. This is summed by Kreese:
    Kreese: Life isn't always fair. Sometimes the world can be cruel. And that's why you have to learn to be cruel yourself.
  • Ironically, the few characters who are not jerks are Chozen Toguchi and Mike Barnes, the antagonists of the second and third movies, who used to be Ax-Crazy jerkasses to the point of trying to kill Daniel at different points, but now both regret their past actions and are on friendly terms with Daniel (aside from some friendly ribbing here and there).
• World of Snark: Nearly every character in the show snarks. Johnny is one of the few who doesn't.
• Would Hit a Girl: Because females are now involved in karate, they are equally as likely to get hit by others as males are.
  • At Johnny's urging, Miguel kicks fellow Cobra Kai student Aisha while apologizing. She then promptly charges him and knee-drops onto him, much to Johnny's approval.
    Johnny: Girl's a natural Cobra.
  • In Episode 9, a drunken Miguel takes a swing at Robby and strikes Sam instead when she intervenes to stop him. It was an accident, and he does apologize for that...but not for trying to start a fight with Robby, which is what Sam wanted him to apologize for.
  • In the Season 3 finale, we see Sam and Tory each fight their way through several male fighters before facing off against each other for round 2.
• Yellow Face: More in the sense of "cultural appropriation," Daniel's love of Karate, Japanese culture and using it in his business can come across as an Italian-American trying to act as though he is Japanese. Obviously, the full context is that love comes from being introduced to it by his friend, mentor and father figure Miyagi, but with his passing other people can't understand that, and he gets called Daniel LaRacist by trolls in the comments.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • Pretty much said word for word by Johnny when he spots a huge billboard for the LaRusso Auto Group with a picture of a suited up Daniel striking an ass-kicking pose with the caption "We Kick The Competition!"
  • Daniel has a non-verbal version of this when he sees the Cobra Kai dojo reopen in Van Nuys.
  • Johnny drops another one when he realizes that one of the girls who trashed his car is Daniel's daughter. Later in the season, he practically whispers another one during a confrontation with Daniel after having the harsh realization that his son not only chose to learn karate from Daniel instead of him, but is perfectly willing to use what he's learned to protect Daniel from him. Along with probably thinking a third one when his thought-to-be-dead teacher John Kreese catches wind of the new Cobra Kai's victory and arrives at the Dojo.
  • Sam to her mom when Amanda grounds her after learning that she was in the car that hit Johnny's car and confiscates all her electronics.
  • Daniel says this phrase word-for-word when he finds out that Johnny is in the same restaurant when he's on a date with Carmen and when Daniel takes Amanda out for dinner where Daniel and Amanda are seated at the table next to him in Season 2.
  • Daniel's reaction when Sam admits to him that Robby caught her and Miguel having an intimate moment at the dojo.
• You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With:
  • Season 1: In his confrontation with Kyler's gang, Johnny straight up tells them "Trust me, you guys are pissing off the wrong guy on the wrong day." And they are.
  • Season 2: While the phrase itself is never used, Demetri returns to Cobra Kai looking to rejoin. The only one there when he visits is John Kreese, and Demetri proceeds to be Demetri around him whilst Kreese stares at him with increasing malevolence. Finally, Demetri looks Kreese in the face and realizes how much he's pissing him off. Cut to Demetri running out of the dojo with a bloody nose.
  • Season 4: Daniel gives Johnny the rundown on who Terry Silver is after he shows back up again, saying "You cannot strike first with this guy." This is proven true when Silver lures Johnny to the old Cobra Kai building and sneak attacks him there. They fight, but Silver is clearly the better fighter and even knocks Johnny unconscious, much to Kreese's displeasure.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame:
  • Johnny gives his students a Rousing Speech about how they will enter the tournament and be completely badass, and in the opening ceremonies Cobra Kai made their entrance with a team building chant of their name. When Cobra Kai's star student Miguel gains an advantage in the final match by fighting dirty, he justifies his means thusly: "There's nothing dirty about winning, sensei. You taught me that." Johnny realizes despite his efforts he has become John Kreese to these kids. When they start chanting "Cobra Kai" again, he does not look proud.
  • Johnny is ambivalent about the praise he sometimes receives from Kreese for being ruthless, since he's trying to distance himself from Kreese's prior teachings.
  • Hawk's Heel–Face Turn in the Season 3 finale is inspired by Kyler, his former bully, congratulating him for helping beat up his former friends.