Dagded Dujardin
I don't think S1 necessarily set up Johnny s the pure paragon of virtue antagonized by the "evil" antagonist Daniel. Sure, he's the protagonist, but the show did not shy away from showing his flaws and how little maturity or understanding of consequences he had. Hell, he "wins" the first season at the cost of alienating the almost-befriended Daniel and his own son entirely out of childish impulses and years of neglect that even in Season 3 he refuses to owe up to and prefers to drink himself to avoid facing reality, as well as finally realizing that his students didn't turn into brave badasses but petty bullies.
I'd argue only Kreese has ever been truly set up to be the villain, Daniel sorta had that in the first half of S1 but when he took in Robby it was clear he was not going or staying in the antagonist role anymore. Hell Season 1 can be considered Good vs. Good to a degree, as Johnny legitimately wants to help people but has little tact and idea on how bad "No Mercy" actually is, while Daniel has his reasons to oppose Cobra Kai (and Kreese's return proved that he had a point) but it's his refusal to let go of some parts of the grudge that lead to disaster.
Edited by VengefulBale on Mar 15th 2021 at 4:16:45 AM
"Bingo! If two species hate each other, they will wipe each other out on their own."
One thing I've come to notice is the amount of unnecessary hate Samantha gets in the fandom. What’s worse is, other characters have made mistakes, often more morally reprehensible than Sam's, yet nobody complains about them. I like Sam as a character and sometimes I think fans forget that this show has teens, who make mistakes. Sam is no different. If she was perfect, she would be boring. But the fact she has flaws makes her more realistic and interesting. There's this YouTube channel called Watch Party, which had negative videos regarding Sam, while taking it all out of context. She’s had so many positive developments over the three seasons and I feel they’re really underrated.
This is where some fans have had a problem with her. Didn’t she confront Kyler about him bullying Miguel and the boys? Have they forgotten that Sam was herself bullied in season 1? Kyler tried to take advantage of her during their date, but she fought back. He then spread those nasty rumors about her, she got dumped by her friends and she was the victim of cyberbullying. Over the course of the seasons, she has learnt to become a better person. She could’ve easily been against Yasmin and Demetri’s relationship. After all Yasmin was the cause of the cyberbullying in season 1, and now Sam and Demetri are good friends, you’d think she’d have a problem with it. But she didn’t; she was surprised when she caught them making out, but nevertheless, she was happy for them at the end.
Another misguided argument from fans. If there was no drama, it wouldn’t be interesting. Sam’s not the only character to cause drama. She does take responsibility for her actions countless times over the course of the show and due to this, she does then go onto have better relationships with Miguel, Moon and Yasmin by season three-she’s even approaches their table during lunch after Hawk destroys Demetri’s model. When Miguel asks her whether they could start over, she agrees. During her date with Miguel, when she’s bragging about the season tickets for the Lakers, she stops herself realizing Miguel isn’t as privileged as her, but invites him to a game with her. She even felt guilty about keeping her relationship with Miguel a secret from her parents and she admitted this to Robby as they drove to the canyon party and from what I remember, she sped down as she was eager to get to Miguel and make it up to him. She is constantly apologizing:
- To Aisha regarding their strained relationship
- During 80s night, she apologized to Tory, telling her she just wanted to order food
- During that same night, she did brush Miguel off after he wanted to make amends and later, she thought it was him and began her apology, but it turned out to be Robby.
- She was about to come clean to Robby about the kiss but the bell rang.
- She apologized to Miguel at the hospital because she felt guilty that he’d seriously been hurt because of her actions.
- She knew the school fight had started because of the kiss at the party and acknowledged it, therefore taking responsibility for it. Some of us forget that Miguel also kissed her back.
- While Sam is flirtatious especially with Robby while she was with Miguel, she was being friendly. That’s who she is. She even thanked Miguel for sticking up for her and for allowing her to join his group for the pig dissection.
There are several things I can point to that show Sam as a caring individual, unlike what Watch Party paints of her.
- "What’s with the doom and gloom?" Sam knew Miguel was upset over something and was supportive telling him, "I’m sure you did amazing again." She tried to distract him by telling him about the student in her class who hadn’t showered. During their date, she let him ‘correct’ her stance before flipping him on the ground. She wanted to impress him and you could see it from her face when she finished the move.
- She even defended Cobra Kai to her dad insisting that just because the kids who were a part of it, it didn’t mean they were horrible kids, showing some understanding of Miyagi's saying "No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher" that Daniel had forgotten.
- Sam told her father how Robby’s living arrangements weren’t great.
- When Miguel was paralyzed the school fight, she and Hawk were one of the first ones to reach him. She later admitted that she didn’t care about Tory and she just wanted Miguel to be okay.
- She was supportive of Miguel at the hospital, telling him he was the one who could beat the odds knowing how worried he was about his surgery. I think it was she who came up with the idea to raise funds for his surgery through the car wash because she knew Carmen couldn't afford Miguel's hospital bills.
- She did keep in contact with Robby while he was in Juvie, but eventually stopped when he didn’t respond.
- She’s defended Demetri from CK and Miguel from Robby
- She didn’t want the Myagi-Do name to be tarnished, so along with Miguel, she tried to get the All Valley reinstated and succeeded.
- She stopped her dad from annihilating Kreese in the season 3 finale; she knew about guilt and its effects on a person and she didn’t want that for her dad.
- She listened to Robby about Myagi-Do needing more offense and tried to beg her dad to teach them some more offense.
- She also accepted Mitch (after he’d tried to attack Demetri) and the other Cobra Kai students that had defected away from Kreese.
- She also came up with the idea of uniting Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang because she realized Cobra Kai was the bigger threat. Fans loved this team up of Johnny and Daniel (and Ali getting them to bury the hatchet), but forget that Sam was behind the dojo truce.
- She told Miguel that Eagle Fang was welcome to train at Miyagi-Do, knowing that they were training in a park.
- It's funny in season 1 that she told Miguel she wouldn’t come to the tournament, but she ended up going. In a way, I feel her presence there allowed Miguel to do well because he wanted to impress her and the more she tried to hide it, the more driven he became. He used that anger, which was directed at Robby to win the tournament.
- Yes, Sam should’ve told her parents about the accident. But how many of us as teens kept stuff from our parents?
- She told Miguel to change dojos, but that was only so her dad could approve of the relationship, because she really liked Miguel.
- She ignored Miguel’s attempts for reconciliation. Yes, maybe Sam just needed some space and wanted to focus on karate to help clear her mind. But she didn’t like what Miguel was becoming –a bully- mostly because she had already dated a bully before: Kyler. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
- She did accuse Tory of stealing her mom's wallet at the Beach Club, but it didn’t help when Tory had stolen a bottle and was bragging how she could steal everyone’s silverware? And Tory was the one who tripped Sam at the rink. Sam just retaliated.
- Sam did lead the Miyagi-Do into an attack which didn’t go as planned at the soccer game. But that was only after she got sick of the way they were being treated by Cobra Kai and Counselor Blatt.
In fact, there's a few things I need to add in defense of Sam that a lot of the fandom doesn't get.
Trying to blame the whole Sam/Tory feud solely on Sam not only does a disservice to Sam's character, but to Tory's character as well.
Tory makes mistakes, and some of her flaws shine through in her interactions with Sam. She starts it with Sam at the roller rink the moment she sees her because she's holding a grudge over their previous interaction. Holding grudges while understandable is ultimately wrong, and this is a character flaw of hers. However, by justifying Tory's behavior with the comeback of "Well, it's okay for her to do this because Sam started it in the first place back at the beach club", Tory's character is robbed of this flaw and resulting mistake.
Looking at the school fight next, Tory starts it because she witnessed Sam and Miguel's kiss. The kiss was wrong (and that's on both Sam and Miguel, BTW ), but Tory way overreacts to it and she does so because she's possessive and impulsive and hotheaded and again, holding a grudge. While it's understandable for her to be upset, in this situation it was wrong of Tory to go after Sam when Sam was not the person involved who had a responsibility to be faithful to her. Miguel was. By removing all of the blame for the school fight from Tory and placing it onto Sam/Miguel, Tory is yet again robbed of the ability to be a complete character who has flaws and makes mistakes.
The fight at the laser tag place is started by Miyagi-Do, but breaking Demetri's arm after he was already beaten was an overreaction by the Cobra Kai students. Tory is one of the voices who encourages Hawk to do it, and she does this because she's vengeful and merciless. By removing all blame from Cobra Kai (which includes Tory), she is again robbed of her flaws and the ability to make a mistake.
Let Tory take some blame, let her have flaws and let her make mistakes because she isn't a complete character without them.
- The Hit & Run: This feels like an obvious one, but first and foremost — Sam was not driving, Yasmine was. Now, Yasmine was indeed texting while driving and that is illegal, but you know what else is highly illegal? Driving drunk and parking illegally, which is what Johnny did (it's easy to imagine he didn't file a police report because they would've smelled that he'd been drinking and made him submit to a field sobriety test he'd have failed). I would also like to point out how Johnny reacted to his car being hit. He was angry which is understandable, but a grown man screaming and banging on the windows of a car full of teenage girls? Of course they floored it. They were probably terrified for their lives and I don't blame them. Should Sam have told her dad what happened? Yes! (She probably would've had she noticed and recognized Johnny at the dealership later in that episode) She was probably afraid of the consequences, but I admit that's no excuse. Sam makes mistakes just like every other character on the show. I would also like to point out that besides Yasmine who was driving, Moon was also in the car, and she also wasn't driving, so she was essentially in the same position as Sam was, yet I never see anyone bring that up when discussing this incident. Doesn't Moon hold the same amount of blame for this? If not, then why? How is she different? ( Not Moon hate, BTW. Just pointing out the inconsistency. )
- Sam & Aisha: Sam is a bad friend to Aisha. She lets her new friends bully Aisha while standing by and doing nothing about it. Sam makes mistakes just like every other character on the show. We see that she learns from this and not only apologizes to Aisha but also begins to actively stand up for her friends. ( See: telling her dad about Robby's home situation, and protecting Demetri when Hawk goes after him at the mall. ) Since learning this lesson, when exactly does Sam fail to stand up for a friend again? (Excluding Demetri at the laser tag place because she clearly wanted to help him, but was physically incapable of doing so because of her panic attack. )
- The first break-up with Miguel: Miguel got dumped because of Miguel's own actions with a sprinkle of blame for Johnny, because his very biased retelling of the events of 1984 plant the initial seeds of doubt, and Johnny also shouldn't be letting his personal problems with Daniel spill over onto two teenagers who have nothing to do with it.
- Tory: Sam does start the rivalry with Tory. She wrongfully accuses Tory of stealing her mom's wallet at the beach club. Sam makes mistakes just like every other character on the show. Like Aisha says, she shouldn't have accused Tory. However, I often feel like this incident is framed by a lot of people like "Tory was just minding her own business when Sam accused her of stealing for NO REASON because Tory had done NOTHING WRONG EVER at that point" when that's just not what happened at all. Tory had literally stolen a bottle of alcohol from the beach club earlier that very day and had also told Sam that she would gladly steal from the beach club again. It makes perfect sense that Sam would think the complete stranger who had literally just stolen from the beach club on that very same day could have stolen something else. Does that make Sam accusing Tory right? Nope! It makes her presumptuous, and in Tory's eyes, probably very sanctimonious and stuck up. Sam has flaws just like every other character on the show. While Sam does ultimately start the rivalry with Tory, absolutely NOTHING that Sam did to her justifies Tory starting the school fight and trying to slice Sam's face off. Sam ( unintentionally ) starts their rivalry, but it's ultimately Tory escalates things far beyond any justifiable reason. Could Sam have apologized? Yup! That was a mistake on her part. Sam makes mistakes just like every other character on the show.
- Kissing Miguel at Moon's Party: Both of them are to blame for this pretty equally, IMO. It always kinda seemed like they kissed each other to me? Should she have done it? Nope! Sam makes mistakes just like every other character on the show. On the flipside, however, Tory handled it so, SO wrong. When another girl kisses your boyfriend, you don't take that up with the girl. You confront your boyfriend. Sam and Miguel's kiss DOES NOT justify how Tory escalates things.
- Demetri's Broken Arm: The fact that so many people seriously try to place all of the blame for this onto Sam is genuinely baffling to me. The fight at the laser tag was Sam's idea. Yes, it goes against Miyagi-Do's teachings to strike first. Sam makes mistakes just like every other character on the show. However, by that point Cobra Kai had been antagonizing them, beating them up, and then playing the victim card when they got caught for a good long while. Of course Sam and the other Miyagi-Do students wanted payback. ( (Cobra Kai mugged Nathaniel, Miyagi-Do retaliated with the soccer game fouling, Cobra Kai retaliated by showing up messing with Chris at work.) Does that make it right? Nope! But I often see this being framed like "The Cobra Kai students were just innocently minding their own business at the laser tag place when Sam decided to lead a vicious attack on them out of nowhere for NO REASON AT ALL" and that's just not how it happened. Ultimately, Hawk is to blame for breaking Demetri's arm and it's not like Sam was just standing around doing nothing when that happens. She was having a panic attack at the sound of Tory's voice. She clearly feels awful about being unable to help Demetri in that moment. ( See her conversations with Daniel about what happened. )
- Robby in Season 3: The two things that I often see brought up here are that Sam stops writing to Robby at some point while he was in juvie, and that he witnesses Sam cheating on him with Miguel again after he is released and shows up at the Miyagi-Do dojo. Sam says that she stopped writing to him because he never answered. While I think it's pretty obvious that Sam and Robby were done the moment that Miguel went over that railing, I understand that they never officially broke up onscreen and Robby was still asking about her with Daniel and defending her to Tory post-school fight. I think what happened here is that Sam broke up, but Robby didn't. In defense of Sam here, she did try and reach out to Robby while in juvie. He never responded. While we as the viewers know the reason why he didn't respond, Sam doesn't. All she knows is that all of her efforts to reach out have been ignored, and so have her father's. Is it really a stretch or at all unreasonable of her to think that Robby was done with her? My point here is that I really don't think that Sam was intentionally cheating on Robby here. She thought they were broken up, he didn't. Considering Robby probably could've responded to an email or two after he earns the respect of Shawn & co. in juvie and they subsequently stopped picking on him, I believe this to be a miscommunication that both Sam and Robby are a little bit to blame for.
But I don't get that argument, because literally the first thing that she does when they arrive at Moon's party is ask Robby if he's certain that he's up for a it because of what was going on with his mom. Robby doesn't even hesitate to tell her that he is up for the party because he could use a distraction.
What was Sam supposed to do? Drag him back home anyway? Or would the fandom criticism then just be that she doesn't trust her boyfriend (who was actively keeping a secret from her at the time, by the way )? Spend the entire party fussing over him and asking every five minutes if he's really sure he wants to be there? In which case, the criticism would instead be that she doesn't trust her boyfriend and/or that she's clingy & annoying.
At the party, she agrees to the drinking game after Tory challenges her. How was this being inconsiderate of Robby? He didn't have to stand there and watch. It's not like Sam is the only person at the party he knows because everyone from Miyagi-Do is there and indeed, it seems like later on as Sam is outside with Miguel, Robby got sidetracked with the other Miyagi-Do students while getting some food for her because he appears among the group of them facing off with Hawk and a few other Cobra Kai students.
If she's inconsiderate because she doesn't seem to notice that her boyfriend is uncomfortable while she's caught up in engaging with her rival, then Tory must be viewed as inconsiderate times a thousand because the beginning of this scene is still the most uncomfortable and awkward that Miguel has ever looked on screen and Tory doesn't seem to notice at all.
So Tory is just as inconsiderate, by these fans' own logic, but I've never seen this argued before because Sam is held to a different and unfair standard than every other character on the show.
When the party disperses in a frenzy because the police show up, Robby finds Sam and says that they need to get her home, but she immediately says that she can't go home because her parents would freak out if they she came home drunk. That's it. Sam doesn't say that he needs to take her somewhere else. Sam doesn't say that he needs to do anything for her. All she says is that she can't go home.
Robby chose to help her and find someplace for her to sleep it off because he wanted to. Sam didn't ask him to bring her to Johnny's apartment. Even if she did, Daniel's reaction to the situation is not her fault whatsoever. From how her parents panicked upon realizing that Sam was missing that next morning after the party, it's obvious that she had never done something like that before.
And, as far as we know, Sam is not psychic. This situation has never happened to her before. She could not have predicted that her father would disown Robby on the spot. (She also doesn't have telekinetic powers that allow her to control cars and singlehandedly cause hit-and-run accidents while she's sitting in the backseat, Yasmine is sitting in the driver's seat and Johnny was parked illegally in the middle of the street, but that's another matter) She's not a mind reader. If Robby says that he's okay with being somewhere or doing something that he's not actually okay with, then it's not fair of Robby or the viewers to expect her to know that. Sam also immediately apologizes to Robby the next time she sees him.
I think the YouTube user WatchParty is at fault for a lot of this anti-LaRusso bent in social media discussion. That creator is incredibly biased and disingenuous, but a large percentage of their viewership believes every single word of their complete nonsense and mindlessly defends it.
He purposely cuts out anything that doesn't support his narrative — especially his nonsense "Everything is Sam's Fault" narrative. Anytime he references the roller rink incident in season 2 is a good example of this. He wouldn't do that unless he was intentionally trying to lead his viewers to agree with him, so, yes, it's definitely his fault.
It's not just Sam who gets affected by this. Some people definitely from his fanbase, again to no fault of his own, believed that Demetri deserved to get his arm broken. They also think that Hawk going good will ruin his badass character, when in reality that Heel–Face Turn was a crucial moment for him. At least he will be around Demetri, just not being an asshole to other people in general. Hawk is very misunderstood by a large amount of the fandom. Anyone who actually liked season 2 Hawk was missing the point completely. Which is that he's a cautionary of tale of what happens when Cobra Kai's philosophy is actually fully embraced, and the result is supposed to be something horrific and bad. (Not saying that Hawk himself is horrific and bad, per se. Just that a lot of his actions and the characteristics of his Hawk persona at the time were.)
Edited by dmcreif on Mar 21st 2021 at 8:17:35 AM
The cold never bothered me anyway
Btw, did they ever explain why they let Tory walk away instead of bringing her down at the end of the house fight?
Edited by Guy01 on Mar 26th 2021 at 4:47:16 AM
Ok, who let Light Yagami in here?
Dagded Dujardin
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
No time to explain, at least in-universe. Word of God hasn't said anything either
Should've Crane Kicked her then. 
I'm fully okay with Tory just being evil.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
I'm fine with her being evil, I would just like her to have to face consequences.
Edited by Guy01 on Mar 28th 2021 at 4:57:00 AM
Ok, who let Light Yagami in here?
Yeah but you know they're going to redeem her.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Hawk being the prime offender, but people love their Draco in Leather Pants. lol
Probably, but in the context of the house fight, there was zero reason to let her walk away when they had her outnumbered 4 vs 1. 3 vs 1 if you want to count out Miguel. That's still an advantage. Capitalize on it and beat her down, restrain her and call the police.
Even if she worms her way out of jail time again, she'll still be out of action for a while just on account of her injuries. One less psycho to worry about.
It sounds ruthless, sure, but this is the second time she's tried to murder Sam on top of now leading a gang attack on her freaking house. Beating her down would be purely self-defense and entirely justifiable.
Edited by Guy01 on Apr 12th 2021 at 6:44:32 AM
Ok, who let Light Yagami in here?
Yeah, I doubt anyone outside of Kreese will walk away unredeemed. Cobra Kai's been big on showing nobody's completely irredeemable.
I do hope they address that Daniel was fully prepared to kill Kreese in that moment.
That's got to affect a guy like him.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
I think one thing that will have to be addressed in season 4 is the ways in which we've seen Miyagi-Do's style isn't that different from Johnny's combat philosophy.
The cold never bothered me anyway
Thinking more about the rivalry between Tory and Sam, I actually think Sam wasn't the one who initiated the rivalry, but Tory did, as Tory was the first to be snarky to the other.
They first meet at the beach club that Sam's and Aisha's families are both members at. Aisha has brought Tory as a guest that day. Tory approaches Aisha and Sam with a bottle of vodka that she swiped from the bar at the club. Sam and Tory then have the following interaction:
- Sam: You should put that back. You could get into big trouble.Tory: And you are?Aisha: Oh, Sam, this is Tory. Tory, Sam.Tory: Oh, the Sam.
As evidenced by the fact that the two of them were just introduced by Aisha seconds earlier, Sam and Tory had never met before. Tory's comment, "Oh, the Sam," is meant to imply that Tory knows of her because she's talked about Sam before, most likely referencing her earlier conversation with Aisha at the convenience store. Of course, talking about someone you've never met before when that person isn't around is not inherently malicious, and I'm not trying to argue that it is. In this case, however, the audience witnessed the conversation that Tory is referring to, so we know what was said. We know that Tory only knows negative things about Sam, mainly regarding the current state of her friendship with Aisha.
So, the audience knows that when Tory is telling Sam that she's heard of her before, she's deliberately telling her that she "knows" things about her, perhaps personal things.
I wouldn't really say that Tory was talking about Sam behind her back, since Tory and Sam didn't know each other at the time, but nonetheless it is underhanded. If Tory didn't want to start something with Sam, why did she basically tell Sam that she's been talking about her when she's not around? Why didn't she just tell Sam that Aisha mentioned her earlier? Why didn't she just greet her when Aisha introduced them and then move on with the conversation?
Instead, Tory very purposely makes a comment that seems aimed at leaving Sam wondering and squirming. It succeeds, too, as the smile immediately falls from Sam's face when the camera pans back to her. Not really surprising that Sam was bothered either, considering her history in season 1 with Kyler, Yasmine, and Moon talking about her and picking on her when she wasn't around. (Yes, Sam allowed her "friends" to do the same thing to Aisha earlier in season 1. By the time this interaction happens in season 2, she's learned that this behavior was wrong and apologized to Aisha for it)
At that point, all Sam has done to Tory is tell her that she should put back the bottle of vodka that she stole because otherwise she could get into trouble. To say that's clear evidence that Sam was trying to start something with Tory is implying that the only way Sam could've avoided starting a rivalry with Tory would be for Sam to be okay with Tory stealing, and being okay with Aisha, Tory, and Sam herself possibly getting caught and getting into trouble (and possibly Sam's and Aisha's families facing consequences from the beach club for the theft). So I don't think that Sam was trying to start something with Tory by advising her against stealing from the beach club, but I actually think it's possible that Tory was trying to start something with Sam, and she succeeded.
The cold never bothered me anyway
A lighter topic, but Netflix apparently made this for April Fools after its Twitter joked Cobra Kai was essentially a shounen anime -
They should use that for season 4.🤣😂
The cold never bothered me anyway
One thing I've come to realize about the show is that the 30 minute length of episodes deos cause issues. Well, "issues" in that the short length of episodes means im they simply don't have enough time to get to important meaningful things. So I want to say this "expands" on what's already in the show to hopefully improve it.
I'll give two examples and my ideas of how they would've played out with longer episodes.
One example is Miguel's abrupt personality change in Season 1. In episode 7 we see Miguel as this extremely sweet and respectful person on his date with Sam. He wouldn't even put his arm around her in the photo booth because he promised her it wasn't a date. Yet a few episodes later, out of seemingly nowhere for the audience, he is talking like a complete maniac. Talking about having to strike first and not waiting for the "enemy" aka Robby, and he wants Sam to see him beat Robby. Now this makes sense, because episode 7 is a few months before episode 9 and 10. So sometime in that period between his first date with Sam and the tournament, all the Cobra Kai training went to his head a bit. The audience though never saw that and so when he was a complete ass in episode 9 and especially episode 10 it was very jarring.
What I would have liked to see had the show had the time to go into it would have been some gradual hints of Miguel becoming a jerk over the course of those few months training. Maybe in training for sparring one day he lands one more punch after point is called before he backs off. Or maybe out at a store or something and someone bumps into him by accident and he yells at them. Any small things to show the gradual change from the person we saw in episode 7 to the person we saw in episode 10. They're two entirely different personalities almost and it was extremely abrupt for the audience.
Another example is in season 3, with Miguel's recovery from when he wakes up from his coma to when he returns to school. As it's done, it's pretty disconnected from everything. Miguel talks to Sam and Hawk in episode 3, sometime before goes under the knife. Then it appears that he literally doesn't talk to Sam, Demetri, or Hawk again until December when he returns to school (episodes 7 and 8). It seems that he is completely disconnected from everyone for a few months.
The way I would've fixed this is by having Sam spend more time with Miguel during his recovery. She made a big deal of taking to heart Hawk's comment about doing enough for Miguel already and she organized the car wash fundraiser to help. Having her visit Miguel more in the hospital would've been beneficial to both of them. It's clear that he enjoyed her presence the one time we see her visit onscreen, so if the show had more time, I think we'd have had Sam visiting him every day after school just to be with him and support him. Once he gets out of the hospital, and starts working with Johnny to walk again, Sam should have been there with him too. They could have really weaved in something cool by combining her PTSD arc and his recovery arc. I can picture a moment where he's practicing walking around, she's just there helping him, and he falls down and he starts moping over potentially not being able to fight again, so Sam just grabs him and holds him and comforts him. As for Sam's PTSD, maybe she comes over to just hang out with him one day to give him something to do and she accidentally falls asleep and all of a sudden starts having one of her nightmares of Tory. Seeing this, Miguel quickly goes over to her and just holds her and as she wakes up her breathing slowly calms down as she finds safety in Miguel's arms.
TLDR, if they had more time on the show, Miguel and Sam being with each other through Miguel's physical recovery and Sam getting over her PTSD could have played out really well. Unfortunately, the show has limited time and because of that Miguel's recovery seemed very detached. However, I do think we might have something like this in season 4 since there will be more scenes with Miguel and Sam than the first three seasons combined (as said by Xolo Mariduena in an IG Live done halfway through shooting of season 4).
The cold never bothered me anyway
Season 4 has wrapped
. Now for post production before they can send it to the internet.
I take this as proof of Terry Silver's return in season 4 even if the showrunners haven't publicly announced it yet.
"Now the real pain begins, Danny boy."
I admit I was disappointed they reversed course on Miguel. I like that he became a bully and gave into the Dark Side.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
I doubt they were ever going to go too dark with Miguel. He could dabble in darkness, like at Coyote Creek, but that was as far as they felt they could take him.
They can afford to take Robby to a very dark place, though, since at this point in time, Johnny needs to focus more on reconciling with Robby and make up for his failures as a dad to him. I think that's how the next season will do it: Johnny focuses more on working to repair things with Robby rather than half-assing it, while Miguel connects with the LaRussos and we get the old Karate Kid training this generation's Karate Kid.
The cold never bothered me anyway
Although Tory does qualify for Unintentionally Unsympathetic, I think it's necessary to point out that her season 3 plot line was not “ruined” to make Sam look better. The darkness Tory had in season 3 was bound to happen to her character because she is under the teachings of Kreese. Out of all the students in Cobra Kai, Tory is the one who knew Johnny the least. All she’s really learned in Cobra Kai are the lessons that Kreese has taught the class. She only knows a little of what Johnny taught. So, out of all the students it’s no surprise that she is the one going down the darkest path. Anyone who thinks her storyline is out of character obviously doesn’t understand just how manipulative Kreese is and how intense the effects his lessons/methods may have on a teenager going through both personal and mental struggles.
I think the reason a lot of people throw shade on Sam is because they are taking out their real-life resentments towards with the rich/popular girls they knew in high school or a high school relationship/crush that didn't work out and are projecting it onto her. And she's far more involved in the plot than any other characters who fit that basic rich girl description so she is the magnet for that hate. On top of that, Season 1 set you up to root for Johnny against Daniel and she is the "other side".
The cold never bothered me anyway