Esqueleto
Directed by Jennifer Celotta
Daniel: Well, I just wanna make sure the kids are having a good night.
The episode opens with a nighttime shot looking over L.A. (set to the strains of some 80's hair metal) before it cuts to Miguel's grandmother cooking dinner for the family. She calls to Miguel in his room, but mistakes the sounds of his karate practice as masturbation. Over dinner, the family discusses what Miguel's costume should be for the school's Halloween dance. Miguel suggests Deadpool, but notes that the costume is expensive.
Meanwhile, Daniel's insecurity about Sam's relationship with Kyler reaches its peak, leading him to sneak into his daughter's room and read her instant messages on her laptop, in which Kyler claims to have "something BIG" to show her at the school dance. Daniel volunteers to chaperone the dance to keep an eye on her, but Sam makes him promise that he will not embarrass her.
At school, Aisha approaches Sam with the idea of going to the dance as Sodium and Chloride, respectively, but Sam tells her that she had already planned on going with Yasmine and Moon as Laker Girls. Sam offers to order another costume so that Aisha can join them, but Yasmine cruelly rebuffs her on account of her size.
At the Cobra Kai dojo, Johnny has received several past-due notices in the mail. Desperate to pay the bills, he asks Miguel if he has any friends interested in taking karate, but suspects he doesn't have any. When Miguel suggests advertising, Johnny bribes a homeless woman to help draw attention to the dojo with a sign while he walks the streets handing out flyers, but his efforts are either ignored or met with ridicule. He returns to the dojo where Miguel is eager to show off the new Cobra Kai webpage he developed in study hall. Impressed, Johnny tells Miguel to meet him at the high school at midnight for his first lesson in kicking, which involves Johnny tying Miguel's hands together and pushing him into a swimming pool. With practice, Miguel is eventually able to break boards with his feet. He and Johnny then prepare for the school dance, but Johnny rejects Miguel's shoddy homemade costume and proposes a different one, stating that Cobra Kai has a reputation to uphold.
Miguel attends the dance in a skeleton ("esqueleto") costume identical to those worn by the Cobra Kai in the 80's. Daniel is disturbed by the sight, but when he notices a Cobra Kai flyer taped to the wall, he leaves the dance to confront Johnny who is posting flyers all over the school. As the two argue, he spies Sam leaving the dance hand-in-hand with Kyler. In an empty classroom, Daniel interrupts them but misinterprets Kyler supposedly presenting her with his grandmother's bracelet, making Sam furious. She tells Yasmine she is ready to leave, but Yasmine cannot resist posting a cruel pig meme about Aisha eating at the snack table before they go.
Miguel takes a bathroom break with his friends in the boys' locker room, but they run afoul of Kyler's gang once more, and Kyler reveals the bracelet is just a cheap bauble he uses to entice girls. Left to fend for himself, Miguel knocks Kyler down with a jumping front kick, but the gang quickly seizes him and delivers a vicious beating. Afterwards, a dismayed Johnny locates his fallen student.
Tropes:
- Adults Are Useless: True to form of any work that depicts bullying, regardless of time period, the guidance counselor proves well-intentioned but utterly out of touch and ineffectual.
- Amusingly Short List: The list of current Cobra Kai students in Johnny's office only has Miguel's name on it.
- Artistic License – Chemistry: Sam calls sodium chloride a molecular (covalent) compound; it's really an ionic compound.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: The homeless woman Johnny uses for advertising proves she is unable or unwilling to focus for very long.
- Bathroom Brawl: Miguel receives a beatdown from Kyler and his gang in the locker room during the Halloween dance.
- Because I Said So: Johnny's reason for cancelling Miguel's practice.
- Call-Back:
- Miguel dresses up as a skeleton, the same way Johnny and his gang did in the original movie.
- Daniel mentions his mom driving him to his date with Ali.
- "Cobra Kai never dies!"
- Johnny looking at the trophy case in the school, including an old photo of Ali.
- Cassandra Truth: Daniel notices Sam and Kyler spending some alone time in an empty classroom, then intervenes and tries to warn Sam that Kyler is bad news. Sam doesn't heed his warning and dismissively shoots him down for not keeping to his promise of not openly humiliating her, then furiously storms off. All the same, Kyler is only minutes later describing to his gang about how he was so close to using his "grandma's bracelet" trick to bed Sam like he has other girls before her.
- Cheap Costume: Miguel's "generic superhero" is made of a couple of old bedsheets. Interestingly, this is also the point where Miguel starts to turn from a sweet kid willing to wear the bad costume his yaya made for him, into a more confident badass... and eventual bully.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: Miguel manages to land one very powerful kick on Kyler which completely takes him by surprise before he and his friends gang up on Miguel and give him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
- Downer Ending: The episode ends with Miguel beaten to a pulp by Kyler and his gang, Daniel's relationship with his daughter has gone downhill, and vicious cyber bullying of Aisha begins with a pig meme.
- Foreshadowing: Amanda mentions that Louie's behaviour at the dealership is unacceptable and unprofessional.
- Hopeless with Tech: Dear God, Johnny."Double-you, double-you, double-you, period..."
- I Lied: Johnny really didn't know the night guard.
- Insistent Terminology:
- Demetri is a necromancer, not a sorcerer!
- Johnny's not a bum. He's his (Miguel's) sensei.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Miguel antagonizing Kyler and his goons at the dance is somewhere between this and Honor Before Reason. Yes they’re dicks but they weren’t doing anything wrong in the moment and it would’ve been wiser for Miguel to back off, as Demetri and Eli did. This all plays out not unlike Daniel did to Johnny at their Halloween dance.
- Meaningful Name: "Esqueleto" is Spanish for skeleton, referencing Miguel dressing up as a skeleton the same way Johnny and his friends did in the original movie.
- Mistaken for Masturbating: When Miguel starts training in his bedroom to loud music, his grandmother hears his exertions and immediately assumes he is masturbating. She attributes the bruises on his knuckles from training to this as well!
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: After landing a single hit on Kyler, he and his goons rough up Miguel and beat him into unconsciousness.
- Not Helping Your Case: Daniel may be right about Kyler’s intentions, but spying on them and pouncing immediately at an intimate moment doesn’t throw off the “over-protective dad” vibe. Which his wife Amanda is quick to lampshade.
- Not What It Looks Like: Zig-Zagged. Daniel interrupts Sam helping Kyler with his belt, and Kyler claims that it isn't what it looks like... but later, Kyler reveals to his friends that he was working toward exactly what it looks like.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Miguel's reaction once he kicks Kyler and realizes he picked a fight he had no chance of winning.
- Johnny has one when he realizes Miguel might actually drown.
- Pet the Dog: Sam attempts to be friendly with Aisha, telling her to "stay salty." Quickly followed by Yasmine's Kick the Dog wherein she cruelly pranks Aisha.THE BUFFET TABLE IS UNDER ATTACK!!!
- Political Correctness Is Evil: The guidance counselor focuses a bit too much on vague PC-rhetoric and not enough on preventing actual harassment happening right in front of her.
- Properly Paranoid: Daniel bursts in and embarrasses Sam right as Kyler is about to give her a bracelet that belonged to his grandmother. When he's back with his posse, Kyler reveals that it was just a cheap piece of costume jewelry, and the "Grandma's bracelet" story is his go-to trick when pressuring girls into sex.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Demetri and Eli flee after they're discovered by Kyler and his goons, leaving only Miguel to fend for himself. It doesn't end well.
- Sink or Swim Mentor: Johnny becomes a literal one, when he drops Miguel into the pool to teach him about kicking.
- Trauma Button: Miguel unwittingly hits one of Daniel's when he dresses as a skeleton, like the Cobra Kai did when they beat him unconscious as a teenager.
