Minefields
Directed by Tawnia McKiernan
At the middle school library, Anthony makes small talk with Lia. It turns out they are childhood friends who used to be neighbors. She proposes that they hang out again sometime — before promptly going to chat with Kenny seated at a different table. Resentful, Anthony takes the opportunity to steal Kenny's clothes (including his new Cobra Kai hoodie) after gym class, humiliating him once again.
Johnny drops by Miguel's place to pick him up for practice. Although Johnny intends to tell Miguel about his relationship with Carmen that night, Miguel happens to discover Johnny's headband in his mother's bed while looking for his water bottle, forcing Johnny to break the news sooner than he had planned.
After school, Daniel confronts Anthony about finding Kenny's hoodie in his room. To explain the situation, Anthony concocts a story that Kenny has been bullying him. Not about to let another of his children become a victim, Daniel resolves to teach Anthony karate, leaving no room for argument on the matter.
At Cobra Kai, Kenny blows off steam on the practice dummy. He is eager to use his training on Anthony and his buddies, but Robby tries to dissuade him, pointing out that he himself got expelled from school and sent to juvie for fighting. He urges his protégé to be smarter, but Kenny argues that he has to do something to stand up for himself. As class begins, Kreese and Silver begin a lesson about weakness, which Silver claims everyone has. When Tory claims that Kreese has no weakness, Silver informs her otherwise, drawing a suspicious look from the older sensei. The students are then paired up to discover each other's weaknesses. To that end, Kreese makes a deal with Silver — they will each choose a fighter, and the sensei with the most victories wins.
Back at home, Johnny and Carmen awkwardly try to tell Miguel that they are dating, but Miguel has already assumed as much. Johnny explains they only wanted to wait for the right time to tell him, but Miguel says as long as they are happy, he is happy too. Nevertheless, Carmen suggests they give him the room he needs to adjust to the situation.
At Miyagi-Do, the students begin practicing for the Skills Competition. Anthony is anxious to join them, but Daniel intends to start him at "level one" instead and brings him to the vintage car lot, where he first started training under Mr. Miyagi. Tasked with cleaning and waxing multiple cars covered in bird feces, Anthony's enthusiasm quickly wanes.
Hoping to emphasize their lesson about weakness, Kreese and Silver choose two students to fight for them; Tory and Piper respectively. Knowing that Piper telegraphs her kicks, Tory takes advantage of this and sweeps her down to the mat for the win.
Devon arrives at Eagle Fang for her first day of training, in which Johnny devises a lesson about cheating. Wanting to prepare his students for any dirty tricks on Cobra Kai's part, he forces them to fight with only one arm, throws sand into their eyes to encourage them to fight blind, and lines them up for Devon to kick them in the groin. To Miguel's frustration, Johnny excuses him from the training in order to protect him before the tournament, causing his teammates to resent his preferential treatment.
Back at the dojo, Kreese has taken the lead in victories among the students, but Silver proposes double-or-nothing and chooses Kenny to face Robby. When Robby shows concern for Kenny after kicking him, Kreese calls a time-out. He orders Robby to stop playing with his opponent, while Silver tells Kenny that even Robby has a weakness. When the fight resumes, Kenny takes another stiff kick and, using Robby's sympathy against him, lures him in for a leg sweep. Victorious, Silver encourages his students to seize upon their opponents' weaknesses by manipulating them.
Daniel returns home later that day to find all the cars shiny and spotless, but is furious to discover that Anthony hired someone else to do the job. He stresses to his son the value of hard work, claiming that Mr. Miyagi would be disappointed in him, but Anthony is sick of hearing about Mr. Miyagi and is not interested in learning karate if it involves doing disgusting chores. Daniel walks away, disappointed with his son's lack of maturity.
When Miguel arrives home later than expected and is questioned by both Johnny and Carmen, his emotions finally boil over. He admits that the two of them dating has made things uncomfortable for him, both at home and at the dojo, and retires to his room for the night.
Anthony walks through the interior dojo at Miyagi-Do, observing the newspaper clippings recounting Daniel's victories at the All-Valley Tournament, along with photos of Mr. Miyagi. When Daniel walks in, he finds Anthony examining the old scroll Chozen had given to him in Okinawa — a mysterious technique that he hopes no one will ever need to use. Anthony explains he was only curious about Mr. Miyagi, leading Daniel to tell him the story of how he had kicked Miyagi in the face when he was a baby. Though he does not want to force Anthony to do anything against his will, Daniel assumed he would want to learn Miyagi-Do to defend himself against his bully at school. Still withholding the truth from his father, Anthony tells him he can handle it on his own.
At the high school, Johnny shows up and convinces Miguel to skip class and go with him on a "field trip". At the middle school, Anthony contemplates returning Kenny's hoodie to him, but is interrupted by Lia who invites him to a fair. Upon learning that she also invited Kenny, Anthony attempts to make peace with him, only to be taunted by Kenny who calls him "LaPusso". Enraged, Anthony and his friends chase Kenny into the library. After Kenny turns off the lights, they split up to find him, but Kenny uses the darkness to his advantage and picks them off one by one until only Anthony remains. Before he can exact his revenge, however, a teacher discovers them.
Johnny brings Miguel back to the dojo where they have a heart to heart talk; he admits that being in a father's role is a new experience for him, mainly because his own father left when he was young and he never had a true role model in life. Miguel understands and concedes that while some things in his life might change with Johnny and Carmen dating, Johnny will always be his sensei. To that end, Johnny leads him to a crate full of watermelons, intending to teach Miguel the flying tornado kick. Sam then shows up unexpectedly, determined to learn both styles of karate even without Daniel's approval.
Summoned to the school by the principal after the fight, Daniel and Amanda are shocked to discover that Anthony has been the bully all along, thus warranting his suspension. Meanwhile, Kreese reminds Silver of an unfortunate squad mate in Vietnam who ended up walking into a minefield, using him as an example of a soldier who didn't follow his leader. He then questions Silver about his implied weakness. When Silver withholds the answer, Kreese reminds him of the cage in Vietnam where he saved his life and orders the former lieutenant to fall back in line, leaving Silver visibly shaken by the memories.
Tropes:
- Asshole Victim: After all of the bullying and humiliations they put the poor kid through, to say Anthony's friends deserved their beatings from Kenny is an understatement.
- Awkward Step-Father/Son Bonding Activity: As Johnny feared, Miguel enjoys hanging out with him much less now that he's dating his mom. However, it gets better once he promises not to give him special treatment in training.
- Big Brother Instinct: Robby keeps encouraging Kenny to stay out of trouble so he doesn't end up in juvie as he and Shawn did.
- Cant Get Away With Nothing: After Kenny's fight with Anthony and his gang gets broken up, we're led to believe that Kenny is going to be the one held at fault because the staff broke the fight up as he was about to pummel Anthony. The follow-up scene with Daniel and Amanda at the principal's office, however, reveals that the Principal has actually researched the situation and learned that Anthony and his friends were consistently the instigators, so only they get suspended.
- Captain Obvious: Anthony mentions that Animal Farm is about animals on a farm. Of course, this summary suggests he's missed the point of the book as an allegory for totalitarian dictatorships.
- Chekhov's Gun: The video Zack posted on social media of Kenny opening his locker and being drenched by milk comes back to bite his group as the school uses it as one of the pieces of evidence to suspend them all.
- Combat Pragmatist: In a sequence that Rambo would be proud of, Kenny defeats Anthony's group by switching off the lights and using the darkness and the environment to pick them off one by one.
- Comically Missing the Point: Johnny and Carmen try to talk to Miguel about them dating. Johnny goes first and tells the kid his mom and he are hooking up. He takes Carmen's "Johnny!" to mean he should be more precise, so starts giving seventeen-year-old Miguel The Talk.Johnny: When two people are really attracted to each other…
- Crazy-Prepared: Defied. Johnny is fully aware that Cobra Kai will have no problem using any dirty trick in the book to win the tournament, so he starts training the Eagle Fang students to keep going after having an arm disabled, being blinded by sand, or suffering a crotch hit. In the end, however, Eagle Fang gets eliminated from the tournament without Cobra Kai hitting them with any of the dirty moves Johnny expected, and that torturous day of training was all for nothing. In fact, it is unknown whether any of the Eagle Fangs fought Cobra Kai in the first place except for Devon fighting Tory. Ironically, Cobra Kai did fight dirty but that was from the paid-off referee rather than Cobra Kai using a dirty technique and except for Silver, none of the Cobra Kais were aware that the referee was paid off.
- Create Your Own Villain: Anthony and his friends' continued bullying of Kenny finally turns him into a full Cobra Kai and Anthony would have gotten his ass kicked if a teacher didn't show up.
- Death Glare: Daniel shoots Anthony a disappointed glare after the principal revealed that his son was the bully, not the victim. Not only did Anthony lie to Daniel, he became the kind of person he despises. Kenny smiles in triumph when he sees the glare Anthony is getting.
- Disappointed in You: Daniel gives Anthony the Wax On, Wax Off lesson and tells him to clean the cars as his first lesson in karate while he leaves for work. When he comes back, Daniel's initially impressed all the cars are cleaned and is proud of his son, until a handyman appears revealing he did all the work he was paid for. Daniel's more than upset that Anthony cheated and failed to see the point in all of it. He calmly voices his disappointment in his son after Anthony basically says he really doesn't give a crap about learning life lessons.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Anthony goes after Kenny because the latter dared to address him as "LaPusso" twice.
- The Dog Bites Back: Fed up with all the harassment he was forced to deal with, Kenny finally fights back against Anthony and his gang, leading them to the empty school library. While they split up to search for Kenny, he knocks them each out one by one.
- Dwindling Party: When Anthony's group chases Kenny into a darkened library, he turns the tables on them and knocks them out one by one.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Anthony tells Lia that Beowulf averts this trope by not even being about a werewolf, whereas Animal Farm plays it straight by literally being about animals on a farm.
- Grammar Nazi: Devon points out that "sensei" and "student" are nouns, not pronouns. And that "quiet" with an "!" is an imperative.
- Groin Attack: A series of them. Johnny makes Devon kick every male Eagle Fang (except Miguel) in the balls to toughen them up for the tournament.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Anthony feels guilty enough about bullying Kenny that he steps away from his gang to acknowledge his wrongdoings to Kenny and ask if the two of them can "start over". But by this point, too much damage has been done, and Kenny opts to pick a fight with Anthony instead.
- Hidden Depths: Anthony admits to Daniel that he's always felt a bit left out in the family because he's the only one who doesn't have any memories of Mr. Miyagi.
- Insane Troll Logic: After Devon introduces herself by announcing her pronouns as she/her, Johnny asserts that "sensei" and "student" are the only acceptable pronouns in his dojo, disregarding that they're both actually nouns.
- Internal Reveal:
- Daniel and Amanda finally learn about Anthony's bullying activities after the principal of the school calls them in and reveals the footage of it.
- Miguel finds out that Johnny is dating Carmen after finding his headband in Carmen's room.
- Jerkass Has a Point: When Daniel finds out that Anthony paid someone to clean the cars at the dojo rather than do it himself, he begins to lecture him and asks him what Mr. Miyagi would have thought, to which Anthony responds by saying he doesn't care because he only met Mr. Miyagi as an infant and all Daniel ever does is talk about how great he was even though Anthony can't even remember him. While he is being disrespectful, he is right that Daniel has a huge broken record about Mr. Miyagi's past and shouldn't try to force everyone to be exactly like him.
- Kick the Morality Pet: Terry Silver was among the very few people Kreese ever showed nothing but kindness to. But that never lasts with Kreese.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Not only is Anthony's crew subjected to the results of Kenny's Cobra Kai training but the school is also made aware of all of the bullying they've done to him and they're all suspended.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: Even though they know Kenny does karate, Anthony and his friends decide to split up to search for him in the library, which naturally gives him the perfect opportunity to pick them off one-by-one.
- Mama Didn't Raise No Criminal: When Principal Fitzpatrick tells Daniel and Amanda that Anthony will be suspended, they insist that Anthony couldn't possibly be at fault. It's only when Principal Fitzpatrick shows them all the video and social media evidence of he and his friends bullying Kenny that they finally accept reality.
- Not What It Looks Like: Kenny appears to be the aggressor when he is found by a teacher standing over Anthony. Subverted when the school cameras reveal Anthony and his friends chasing down Kenny.
- Parental Favoritism: Johnny begins to keep Miguel from participating in the more physical Eagle Fang training, much to the resentment of both Miguel and the rank-and-file Eagle Fangs.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The staff at West Valley Middle School proves to be much more competent than the high school, as when they see the fight between Kenny and Anthony's group, they do a full investigation and hold the bullies accountable for everything they did to Kenny leading up to it by suspending them.
- Rejected Apology: Anthony tries to bury the hatchet with Kenny, but Kenny is having none of it. It also didn't help that Anthony threatened to pound on Kenny for addressing him as "LaPusso".
- Remember the New Guy?: This episode is when it's revealed Lia, the girl we first saw as a classmate in Anthony's and Kenny's gym class, is actually the former's childhood friend, having known him since at least primary school. Although, apparently, they hadn't talked much since.
- Riddle for the Ages: While showing Anthony's social media posts to Daniel and Amanda, Principal Fitzpatrick admits the staff is still unsure how he and his friends got all that milk into Kenny's locker. This is addressed in Season 5 as Anthony explains that they used a bag to hold the milk so that it would spill out when the door is opened.
- Shout-Out:
- Lia has a copy of Beowulf.
- Anthony recommends Animal Farm instead.
- Devon has watched a lot of martial arts movies. So has Mitch, but Johnny doesn't want to hear it.
- Miguel refers to Johnny dating his mom as a Jekyll & Hyde situation, just when he was used to Johnny being Mr. Hyde.
- Terry is reading Leviathan in the dojo.
- Sustained Misunderstanding: Daniel thinks that Anthony is going through the same thing with Cobra Kai he did as a youth when Anthony is actually the one bullying Kenny, who joined Cobra Kai to learn how to defend himself and (before this point) hasn't used any karate on anyone outside the dojo.
- The Talk: Played for laughs. Johnny tells Miguel to always wear protection, then when Carmen reacts he thinks her issue is with his advice, not with him trying to give Miguel The Talk regarding Sam.
- This Is Gonna Suck: During the Groin Attack exercise with Devon, both Bert and Mitch have this reaction when their turn to be kicked is upon them.
- Underdogs Never Lose: Subverted. Terry seems to be betting on this when he picks Kenny to fight Robby, but the reason he picked him is that everyone has a weakness, and Robby's is Kenny.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: While Silver explains Robby's weakness to Kenny, it cuts away to Kreese telling Robby to stop playing around. Kenny then defeats Robby by distracting him with a Wounded Gazelle Gambit and sweeping his leg.
- Wax On, Wax Off: Or rather, "soap on, crap off". For Anthony's first karate lesson, Daniel teaches him exactly how to clean the cars at Miyagi-Do's, in order for him to do that while Daniel is helping Amanda at the dealership. Then Anthony goes on to hire a handyman that will do the chore for him.
- We ARE Struggling Together: Kreese begins to resent what Silver has been teaching to the students and dresses him down.
- Wham Episode: Sam seeks out Johnny for more Eagle Fang training, Daniel and Amanda learn the truth about Anthony's bullying, and Kreese and Silver's partnership begins to splinter.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: On Silver's advice, Kenny defeats Robby in a sparring match by faking an injury, knowing Robby's compassion will cause him to let his guard down.
