Glory of Love
"Here you are, making me think I'm a paranoid asshole and yet you're on a date with Robby?"
Written by Josh Heald (Story), Jon Hurwitz (Story), Hayden Schlossberg (Story), Joe Piarulli (Story & teleplay) & Luan Thomas (Story & teleplay)
Directed by Jennifer Celotta
Directed by Jennifer Celotta
Robby: Everything okay?
Sam: Yeah. Okay, I'll admit, it's kinda weird running into your ex. Plus, that girl Tory is the worst.
Sam: Yeah. Okay, I'll admit, it's kinda weird running into your ex. Plus, that girl Tory is the worst.
After Kreese's termination from the dojo, Johnny tries to rein his students back in with a lesson about mercy... and headbutting. He has also developed a crush on Carmen, but before he can express his feelings to her, he finds that she has a new boyfriend named Graham.
Miguel, unaware of Johnny's true feelings, encourages his sensei to start dating by using a dating app. After failing to connect with a string of women, Johnny decides to write Ali a message via Facebook Messenger. Although he briefly has second thoughts about it, an attractive woman at the bar bumps into him, causing him to unwittingly send the message. While Johnny and the woman seem to be perfect for each other, he ditches her when he overhears Graham speaking ill of Carmen nearby. He proceeds to rough up Graham outside the bar, intimidating him into leaving Carmen alone.
Lucille comes to visit the LaRusso household, where she and Daniel reminisce about Daniel's father. Daniel tries to improve things at the dealership, only to have Amanda reject his "grand gestures". He tries to continue training his students by having them wax the cars in the showroom, but his wife frowns upon it, partly because of child labor laws. Eventually, Daniel gets back into her good graces by treating her to an impromptu date mirroring the grand opening of the car dealership sixteen years earlier, when Amanda was pregnant with Sam.
Tory invites Miguel to an 80's Night at the roller rink, where she works as a waitress. Robby and Sam also attend, now officially a couple despite keeping it secret from the LaRusso family. Miguel tries to smooth things over with Sam, but his efforts are in vain. Tory then knocks over Sam as she skates by, leading Sam to retaliate with a leg sweep. As a result, both she and Robby are kicked out of the rink.
Johnny returns home to find Carmen waiting outside her door for Graham, who she believes stood her up for their next date. Telling her that she deserves better than Graham, Johnny asks her out on a date himself.
Tropes:
- The '80s: The whole episode is rife with 80's references, including a Call-Back to Johnny's iconic red Cobra Kai jacket from the first film, and the costumes the characters wear to Eighties Night. And rollerskating.
- Asshole Victim: Johnny happens to run into Carmen's current suitor, Graham, talking about bailing on her "after a few bangs" and picking up another woman. He follows the guy outside and beats him up until he promises to ghost her.
- Auto Erotica: Johnny suggests this to one of his dates. She very definitely does not appreciate the idea.
- Blatant Lies: Sam denies that she is dating Robby, but Miguel doesn't buy it.Miguel: Here you are, making me think I'm a paranoid asshole and yet you're on a date with Robby?
Sam: It's not a date.
Miguel: Not a date. Yeah. Never heard that one before. - Brick Joke:
- Plantain. Also the customer from hell who got Johnny fired in the pilot.
- Early in the episode, Johnny laments that dating used to be as simple as (literally) bumping into a woman at a bar. After his failed attempt at internet dating, he finds himself approached by a woman using this same method.
- Call-Back: Johnny tells his students that they have to keep moving forward, or they'd get stuck like cement. This is the same lesson he taught much more literally in Back to Black.
- Combat Sadomasochist: During the headbutting exercise, Stingray seems to enjoy being brutally headbutted by Hawk.
- Continuity Nod: During Johnny's string of bad blind dates he comes across the woman in the first episode who got him fired for mounting the TV on the wrong wall. It even includes the same "stop bitching" vs. "did you just call me a bitch?" joke.
- Captain Obvious: In his Facebook message to Ali, Johnny explains that Facebook is an app on his smartphone. Justified, given his ignorance on technological advancements that have occurred since the 2010s.
- Comically Missing the Point: Daniel thinks he can get back into Amanda's good graces by having all of the students do Wax On, Wax Off training at the dealership as a way of doing both his job and teaching. However, it doesn't work because it just continues to make it look like Miyagi-do is Daniel's number one priority and he won't give up doing any training sessions.
- Daddy's Girl: Referenced, and cements Sam's place in Daniel's heart.Daniel: She's mine. You can have the next one.
- Do Wrong, Right: After kicking Kreese out of the dojo Johnny decides to attempt to subvert this by directly addressing his students, admitting that the mantra of Cobra Kai is flawed and that there is a difference between no mercy and no honor.
- Dream Intro: The episode opens with the most hilariously 80s-riffic, Whitesnake-inspired erotic dream ever witnessed.
- Erotic Dream: As mentioned above, Johnny starts off the episode by having one of these about Carmen.
- Exact Eavesdropping: Johnny conveniently happens to be in the same bar as Graham, at the right time to overhear his trash talk about Carmen.
- Exiled to the Couch: Daniel is seen waking up on the couch. He claims to his mom he spent the night there because he has a fever, but it more likely has to do with his and Amanda's argument last episode.
- False Innocence Trick:
- Tory knocks Sam down at the roller disco while skating past her, which causes Sam to leg-sweep her. This causes her to get kicked out even though Tory instigated it.
- Johnny talks about how in the old days, you'd deliberately bump into someone at a bar, and then buy her a drink to 'apologize'. Later in the episode, a woman pulls that exact trick on him.
- Grand Romantic Gesture: Daniel attempts (and fails) several of these to try and get back in Amanda's good graces. Sushi for lunch didn't work because she already had a lunch meeting, and then bringing the Miyagi-Do students to the dealership to wax cars didn't work because it looked like child labor. Finally, Daniel lands a hit by recreating the champagne/sparkling cider date he and Amanda had in the back of a limousine when their dealership opened.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: When he encounters Sam at the skating rink, Miguel is initially hopeful that they can go back to at least being friends, but after talking to her — and after both of them seeing who the other is now dating — he concedes that it's a lost cause.
- Kubrick Stare: The politically active woman that Johnny talks to gives him an unamused look when he invites her for a ride in his Dodge Challenger and offers to teach her how to "drive a stick".
- Insistent Terminology: Subverted. Johnny clarifies that he never called the same woman seen way back at the beginning of S1E1 a "bitch"; rather, she was bitching at him. As she leaves, however, Johnny quietly mutters "bitch" anyway.Woman: You called me a bitch.
Johnny: No, I said you were bitching at me!
Woman: You know what? That's it. I'm done with these shitty apps.
(The woman storms off.)
Johnny: (muttering) Bitch. - Irony: After Sam explains her enmity with Tory, Robby (who is still echoing Daniel's idealism) says that Tory merely needs to be shown "the right way". Over seasons 3 and 4, Tory ends up enticing Robby to embrace Cobra Kai instead.
- Lady in Red: A gloriously pregnant Amanda wears a killer red dress in a flashback to the dealership's grand opening, though the trope itself is somewhat downplayed in that Amanda is obviously not trying to be overtly sexual, merely romantic.
- Made Out to Be a Jerkass: Miguel's attempts to reconcile with Sam fails, with her assuming the worst about him for dating Tory.
- Mood Whiplash: After the hilarious scene of Johnny's terrible dates culminating with the aforementioned comes a sentimental scene of Daniel and his mom reminiscing their time with Daniel's father.
- Mythology Gag: "Glory of Love" was the name of the Award-Bait Song by Peter Cetera written for The Karate Kid Part II. Reinforced by the use of Cetera's "You're The Inspiration" in the scene where Daniel finally makes up with Amanda.
- One Drink Will Kill the Baby: Zig-Zagged. When Amanda was pregnant the first time, at the grand opening, Daniel pours her sparkling cider, allaying her concerns that he'll be the only one in the car drinking alcohol. Then they move on the "the real stuff", averting the trope.
- Shout-Out: The costumes of the main four we see at the roller rink all reference famous 80s looks.
- Tory is dressed like Madonna.
- Robby and Sam go as Blaine and Andie, even though she wanted him to go as Duckie. Alone, though, most people think Robby is Don Johnson.
- Miguel is dressed up in Johnny's old Cobra Kai red biker jacket. While Johnny is not an 80's reference in-universe, Miguel ends up vaguely resembling Michael Jackson from the music video of "Thriller", which was probably his intention.
- Take That!: A gentle one to "social justice warrior" types, as one of Johnny's dates is a woman who is a passionate feminist and environmentalist. The date does NOT go well, but it is clear that the failure is due to Johnny's ignorance rather than the woman being too militant or anything.Woman: We combat all institutions of oppression: runaway capitalism, climate change denialism, the patriarchy. You know, the problem is, a lot of these issues are becoming systemic.
Johnny: Oh yeah, totally systemic... I hate the Patriots too. - Terrible Interviewees Montage: Johnny's dates, while not necessarily terrible (ranging from too much eye contact to misunderstanding the nature of his "teaching kids" job to advocating sensitive social issues), all clash horribly with his personality.
- Use Your Head: The lesson given at Cobra Kai involved learning how to headbutt, given the Training from Hell Cobra Kai pushes, which involves real-world practice against each other. Johnny later uses the same move against a sleazeball trying to manipulate Carmen.
- Wax On, Wax Off: Daniel gets the whole dojo waxing cars at the dealership.
Carmen: You asking me out?
Johnny: What if I am?
Johnny: What if I am?
