The Good, The Bad and The Badass
We begin episode 8 of Cobra Kai Season 3 with Daniel gathering his troops as they decide to work together and defeat John Kreese and Cobra Kai. While he gives an impassioned speech, Johnny does the same thing as he has a slightly different tact but with the same message. While Daniel teaches compassion, Johnny wants to toughen the kids and make them stand up for themselves. Kreese meanwhile, wants his students to win at all costs. It’s a triple threat bout that looks set to explode at any moment. Daniel and Johnny continue to come to blows when they arrive to pick up Robby from jail. He’s now a free man but he doesn’t want anything to do with either of them. As Robby walks away, both are left to wonder where Robby’s allegiance will lie. Tory crosses his path though and begins stirring things up, especially with Sam and Miguel’s affection for one another. Daniel takes out his frustrations on his students during training. Midway through though, Ron shows up and admits there’s a problem with the whole tournament. In fact, the city council has completely cancelled the event after the incident at the school. There’s a community hearing coming up and that could be just the ticket needed to turn public opinion. Sam and Miguel do their best to convince their sensei’s to attend and they both eventually do just that. They’re not alone though and as the meeting begins, John Kreese shows and plays his hand. He manages to convince the council that he’s a good guy until Johnny backs up Daniel’s objections. With all 3 sensei together, the council decide they definitely shouldn’t go ahead with the tournament… until Miguel shows up. It’s Miguel and Sam who manage to convince otherwise and together manage to green-light the tournament being back on again. On the back of this, Miguel and Sam drink together while jokingly talking about the mantras of their chosen dojos. They jokingly spar before things turn romantic. At least, it looks that way until Robby shows up. He tries to hit back at Miguel but Sam gets in the way. Eventually Robby leaves them together and sets off for Cobra Kai. Prison has clearly hardened this boy and he shows up before Kreese and calls him sensei.
The Episode Review
Robby is finally back and it seems prison has definitely changed this boy now. The love triangle from last season returns and this, coupled with Johnny not showing at visitation, has led Robby over to Cobra Kai. It’s a bit of a change of character from season 2 but one that’s at least explained through his time in prison. There’s a lot of spinning plates in this show and Cobra Kai does struggle at times to balance them all. With the karate tournament back on though, all eyes now turn to the final 2 episodes as it looks like we could be in for a lot of karate action. We shall see of course but for now, Cobra Kai bows out with another decent episode.
