43: "Strike Last" (S6E14)

[00:00:00] Hmm? Ah! Hmm... You know, first time I saw that logo here, brought up some pretty visceral emotions. I know this style of karate will always exist. And even though I don't believe in it, I do believe in you. It means a lot, man.

[00:00:30] You're just putting that steak on my back again so Tori and Miguel can have their shot. Yeah, it's one thing. But bringing Cobra Kai back all the way after McCreece and Silver turned it in, too. They did a lot of damage. But if you could lead Tori and Miguel to victory tomorrow, your Cobra Kai will be Sakai Tai Kai champions. That's what it'll be known for. And you'll be the sensei who made it happen.

[00:01:01] Clean slate. It's feeling like a yes. That's a hell yeah. Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. I'm Jason. And I'm Richard. And I'm Rima.

[00:01:30] And this is, you guessed it, Cobra Kai Cast. This week we're covering Cobra Kai Season 6 Episode 14, Strike Last. Yeah, because if you strike last that means you won. Yeah, I guess. I suppose. And this will be the final episode of our podcast. No, just kidding. Pretty close. The last episode for the final Cobra Kai won't be out until about two and a half weeks from now.

[00:02:00] We're recording March 21st, I think. So, because my family's going on vacation next week. So don't wait if you've been waiting to watch it until our podcast comes out. You should just watch the finale right now as we will be doing as soon as we finish recording this. Yeah. I almost don't want to. I know. I know. It's going to be, it's been so, there have been so many emotional moments in these last. Yeah.

[00:02:30] Several episodes. I know it's going to be the most like that probably. Mm hmm. Like sitting next to a bomb. You're just wondering, it's like everything's going so well right now. When's, when's something bad going to happen? Yeah. No, I like, I've always thought the series will end on a feel good. I want to feel good. Hi. Yeah. I'm hoping they keep it going. If Wolf wins the tournament, I'll be pretty shocked. Oh wow. Not see that coming.

[00:02:59] Didn't get on the ground. On the ground. God damn it. Why did I watch this show? All right. Cobra Kai season six, episode 14 strike last. Daniel rents the old Cobra Kai dojo from Armand Zakarian for Johnny to train Miguel and Tori before the Sakai Taikai finals. Johnny advises Miguel that after everything he's been through, he should fight for himself first and foremost. In the finals, Cobra Kai's plan is to reduce the point gap between them and Iron Dragons.

[00:03:28] The first final is the women's final in which Zara easily wins the first round after provoking Tori. Robbie talks to Tori and they kiss, which makes Tori focus and easily beat Zara by knocking her out. In the men's final, Miguel wins the first round against Axel. But after talking to Wolf, Axel beats Miguel in the second round, leaving a big point gap between them. Wolf tells Axel to break Miguel's spine. Axel ultimately refuses and Miguel ends up winning the match. Yay. Disgusted with Wolf's cheating, Axel resigns from Iron Dragons.

[00:03:58] After the finals, Cobra Kai and Iron Dragons are tied and Braun announces the champion dojo will be decided in a match between their sensei's. Silver plots in his yacht and orders Dennis to threaten Carmen and her daughter. Dennis is killed or was he killed? At least incapacitated by Kreese. And then he was killed, I guess. And Kreese and Silver fight, overturning a fuel container. Silver pins down Kreese and begins to throttle him.

[00:04:25] And Kreese manages to grab his lit cigar he dropped and tosses it into the fuel, blowing up the yacht and killing them both. R.I.P. Silver Kreese and Dennis. Can't say I was surprised. At what? Anything? At the Silver Kreese and Dennis kicking it. Really? I was like, what the fuck? Yeah. Yeah, I was too. I was not expecting that.

[00:04:54] Especially I didn't expect, uh, Silver not to make it to the final episode. Yeah. See, I was, I wasn't that surprised. I was getting kinda, I don't know if it was just this episode, the feel goodness of this episode, but everything he was saying, everything Kreese said before was just kind of like, eh, old hat, you know? Wait, what? Everything who was saying? And Kreese and, uh, Silver. They were just, it's like, they just kept saying the same things over and over. You mean on the yacht or?

[00:05:24] No, just in the episodes. Okay. I was like, these guys, they're going, they're going away soon. You can tell. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some insight that I was not picking up on for sure. Yeah. I mean, thinking back, uh, Kreese said to Kim Day-un, like I, she's like, you still have a chance to be a good person. And he's like, I've been a bad guy for so long. I don't, I don't think I know how to be a good guy or something like that. Yeah.

[00:05:53] So this was like his last hurrah. And I guess they did that just because I think next week, next episode, we're going to see, you know, we might even get a little bit of a time jump to see how people's happy endings are going. Yeah. I hope so. But for Kreese and Silver, I think they thought this would be better. Yeah. It's a fitting end, you know?

[00:06:20] And then, uh, so we're talking about, you know, uh, well, he wasn't talking about it, but he had six months to live and he didn't change, you know, he was still trying to pull his old shit again. I'm just like, he died unredeemed. Mm hmm. So what did you guys think about the episode though? Well, it was certainly a family friendly episode. We're getting a wrap on all the characters that, you know, I think, uh, all their character arcs are coming to fruition there.

[00:06:50] Everyone's focused. There's very little drama other than what's, you know, who's going to win the championship fight. Mm hmm. But even then, I don't know. I felt like the outcome was pretty, pretty expected. Oh yeah. It seems pretty clear. There's only one event left. So it's going to be interesting to see if they throw anything, any twists in, in the last minute, you know? Yeah. I mean, I feel like for the most part, I've been able to predict things on this show better than pretty much any other show I podcast on.

[00:07:17] I think that I didn't see that creased, Terry Silver thing coming, but for the most part, but that doesn't take away from my enjoyment of it when it happens. It's still really fulfilling. I think I said this last time, huh? Cause they do it in a special way and it's still just great to see. Cause I want all this. I want, I want Donnie to get Cobra Kai back and be successful and everything. Yeah. They're giving you what you want to see all this time. Yeah. What about you, Rima? Did you like this one?

[00:07:43] Oh, I, I think I cried like the entire time in a good, in a good way. Uh, you know, just because of all the, uh, you know, emotional like punches, they kept, you know, figuratively and I guess literally, uh, punches being thrown in the air. So, um, no, I, I loved it. I thought it was great. And, and I totally agree with, with, with you. Like there's a lot of, uh, predictability in, in the show.

[00:08:07] Like you can, like, you know how things are going to kind of end up, but it doesn't take away from the enjoyment at all. Yeah. It's just like, you know, well, you're pretty sure. I think with any karate kid movie, you know, Daniel's going to win in the end, you know? Mm hmm. And it still feels good. Yeah. And if he didn't, it would, you'd maybe go ask for your money back or something. What the hell was that all about?

[00:08:37] Yeah. I mean, I felt, yeah. I mean, I felt in my heart from, you know, way back that, I mean, one, I knew and felt that this was Johnny and Miguel's story. You know, like we've got all these other great characters. We've got a lot of great stories. We've got a lot of, you know, new, new people we've been introduced to in the karate kid world, you know, and it's expanded into this Cobra Kai, you know, universe.

[00:09:03] So we've got a lot, you know, of additional people and stories. But at the heart, it's always for me been Johnny and Miguel. And I've said that, you know, a lot. But so I've, I've always felt that there's, you know, there's going to be a good outcome. And there's, you know, Miguel's going to come out on top. Johnny is somehow going to come on top. Now how we get there. I couldn't always predict and see and had some good surprises, but I always thought it was going to come out that way. But it didn't feel any less awesome.

[00:09:33] We're saying that and all the listeners are like, oh, you guys are in for a rude awakening. Are we going to get screwed over on the last one? Is it going to be a kick to the gut? I hope not. Remember what the tarot card reader said to Chosen. Oh, God, the death card. Everyone Chosen knows is going to die in a bus accident. Three down, three to go. All right. A charred Terry Silver's going to walk into the tournament and go out the whole place.

[00:10:03] Right, right, right. I'll get my revenge. And then he's going to die of cancer. All right. Richard, want to go first? Yeah, I kind of I'm sitting here thinking about what I said earlier about not being surprised about Chris. I think it was this Chris in the silver. I think it was partly of the field goodness, the family friendly episode, the lack of drama in this episode. It's like it's like so. Oh, my God. What am I trying to say?

[00:10:32] It's like in this episode, most of the characters are doing and saying like what normal people would do in such situations, you know, which makes for not much drama. So you're saying they needed some. Yeah, they're acting like adults. The adults are acting like adults. The kids are making really good choices. Something that you don't see in shows, right? Something has to run askew. Yeah. Well, for example, like Miguel finds Sam's acceptance letter, right? And then, you know, right before he goes to fight.

[00:11:02] Yeah. And then he goes and tells her, oh, great. I just want you to be happy. Yeah. I was worried he was going to be distracted for the whole thing. But instead, he likes, you know, doing the whole looking over at Sam every two seconds when he's in this fight. But no, he takes it really well and truly wants her to be happy and then proceeds to kick Axel's ass. Daniel and Johnny are just totally nice to each other the whole time. Yeah. Supportive. Yeah. Totally supporting each other.

[00:11:27] The other one I was just thinking of was Silver when he tried trash talking to Daniel about that after the first batch. You know, he was trash talking about Mr. Miyagi. He was trash talking Miyagi dough failing. He was trying to get him to, you know, get all riled up because Cobra Kai was going to make a comeback. And Daniel's like, hey, haven't you heard Cobra Kai never dies? Basically telling him, you know, fuck off, dude. Who cares? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was an interest.

[00:11:54] I love that scene because just the way Ralph Macchio played it so centered and calm, because I think Cobra Kai never dies doesn't really make much sense. Yeah. Because he's saying, you know, you guys are losers because you quit and that's how everybody goes to remember you. And now you're Cobra Kai is going to get all the all the glory. And how does that feel? Danny boy. And he's all, oh, you know what they say. Cobra Kai never dies. Like what?

[00:12:20] But it was more about the vibe than anything, you know, not letting him get to him like he always usually does. And so everybody was was being normal and, you know, for lack of a better word in this episode. And it was great. It was exactly, I think, what this penultimate episode needed. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed watching it. And it was a feel good episode, you know? I mean, it's like, yeah, all that normalcy just to make up for it.

[00:12:47] You needed a big giant explosion among two fucked up dudes at the end or something. Yeah. Then that happens, right? Balance the universe. Back to the old writing. But, um. Yeah. I was gonna say, gotta have some Cobra Kai fuckery, you know, still happen in the episode. I forget if I mentioned this last time, but I was thinking about how in the first five episodes, we were all sort of like, God, they all hate each other. They're sabotaging each other. They're finding reasons to fight for no reason. They're all angsty.

[00:13:15] And then, you know, that was so they would head into the tournament in Spain with that going against them. And then they kind of had to work it out while they were over there. And by the end they had that nice scene in the locker room where they all sort of made amends and, and they were feeling good. So, um, that's more or less carried over into these final episodes, them being all in a good headspace together. Yeah. Which is great. Yeah.

[00:13:38] I mean, if you, if you were to sum it up, like in just words, like saying something like, sometimes it takes people several years to wise up, you know, to wise up and stop saying stupid shit and doing stupid things. That sounds pretty believable. It's kind of what happened here, you know, took them six years to, to wise up and figure out how to behave and what to say and at the right times in the right moments. I don't think that's that unusual in real life. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah. Mm hmm.

[00:14:08] Yep. Take a long time sometimes. Okay. Rima. Yep. Well, I mean, if we're going to go ahead and talk about the ending, then that's, I'll just make that my, my first point. Um, since that's what we're talking about. I mean, like I said, RIP to the folks on that boat. Like, was there an innocent boat crew other than like Dennis, Terry Silver and Kreese? I'm thinking, is there a captain?

[00:14:36] Is there any other worker? He does it all. I mean, I'm just thinking there could be some like innocent people on there just minding their business, tending the ship, doing whatever you do on ships and whatever. And all of a sudden there's this old man fighting on the boat and the boat blows up. Uh, so that was weird. Um, but totally eighties though. I mean, the whole thing between Kreese and silver and then the boat explosion.

[00:15:04] I mean, you could have pulled that out of any eighties big eighties movie, you know? And it totally fits with Magnum PR. Kreese's scenes being more like that. Like when he broke out of jail and stuff. Mm hmm. Yeah. So that was a nice little flavor. I feel like they, they do that nicely. They put those, you know, little eighties kind of, uh, touches in there, but it was weird. Cause I was questioning, you know, after silver was having that conversation with Dennis and then all of a sudden the dude comes tumbling back down the steps.

[00:15:33] Like did, did Kreese straight up murder the guy or was it when he blew up the boat? Like we know obviously blew up the boat. Um, the, the, the dude is gone, but like, did he just straight up murder him? I couldn't hardly tell. Cause when he, he looked pretty bad when he came down the stairs, but when he hit the bottom, there was like a, did you hear the snap? Yeah. Like, like. He had a huge cut on his neck too. Yeah.

[00:15:58] So I couldn't tell him like, dude, did he do that before he, um, you know, threw him down the stairs or did his neck snap when he hit the bottom of the stairs, you know? And maybe it doesn't matter. I'm just kind of nitpicking, but I'm just like, dang crease. Like my point was like crease just went like all in, um, on, on him. So it was, it was unclear, um, to me at that point. Um, and I wasn't sure if crease overheard anything that silver was saying, uh, to Dennis about his plan.

[00:16:27] I know he was like, you know, Hey, I heard, I saw you talking to Johnny and I just know that look in your face, you know, that whatever you've got planning, isn't good. So that's how I guess he knew to, you know, go to, go to silver and stop him at that point. Um, but I was, I don't know. I, I knew I didn't really feel Terry silver was going to get like any kind of redemption, but it's just, it felt so crazy to me that he was willing to go so far as to like kidnap Carmen and the baby. I mean, a baby.

[00:16:56] Right. That's bad. It's low. And just, I mean, did he say kidnap? I thought he said just threaten them, but either way, the point was capable. They kidnapped Daniel in Spain. The point. Yeah, that's true. I mean, the point was to, I guess, use leverage of some kind of a threat to Carmen and the baby to make Johnny throw the fight.

[00:17:20] And then if that's the case, then how would that be fulfilling to Terry? It's like, yeah, I won because I threatened your family. I don't guess it mattered. He really wanted this legacy. Yeah. Like reputation. Yeah. I think that's just what he cared about. Like he knew he was going to die. He was sick. I guess he didn't have, I mean, I know he's got this yacht, but it seemed like he didn't have much left to his name.

[00:17:49] After unclear, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not clear. He said he didn't have mansions, but it seemed like he could bankroll the whole tournament. So who knows? Yeah. It's bizarre to me. I'm not quite sure on the details, but he has, you know, no wife, no children to inherit his fortune. He's got no legacy left. All he's got left is this victory, you know, that, that he, that he can leave behind or whatever. And now he, he doesn't even have that.

[00:18:18] And, you know, Chris goes out. He, he, I wouldn't say in my opinion that he was fully redeemed, but I do think that he got a dignified end that I think was content. A content way to end his story. He did get to part on good terms with Johnny and with Tori, and he knows that he went out, you know, kind of saving Johnny's family from whatever it was that Silver had planned. So I think, I think it was a fitting end.

[00:18:48] I, you know, it was kind of fun to watch, you know, but it was, it was a shock to me. I was like, what the hell's going on? I thought it was hilarious. Yeah. I laughed out loud when the boat exploded. It is the kind of, you're right. It's, it's kind of meta because it's exactly the kind of thing that Johnny would see on TV and say, bad-ass. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Well, it was pretty, it was pretty silly watching those two old men fight, but. Yeah.

[00:19:18] Time. I kind of, you know, I can fantasize about taking a punch like that when I'm 77. I hope I can. Heck yeah. Um, I, you know how we, we watched Karate Kid three for people listening. If you didn't know, it's, it was a fun episode back in the feed earlier in the feed. We watched all the Karate Kid movies, every single one of them, except for the 2010 reboot. But, um, maybe we'll do that one at some point anyway. Cause what's his name's coming back. Jackie Chan.

[00:19:45] Um, but, uh, anyway, I got off track there. What was I trying to say? Oh yeah. Terry silver. I, I would just remember being so disappointed in Karate Kid three when I first watched it. Cause I was such a fan and it wasn't a good movie, but going back and watching it for the podcast, I had a new appreciation for Terry silver. Cause he was just so over the top of which with such gusto about it, you know? And then, so then when he came back into the series, I was a little disappointed that he was all low key.

[00:20:15] And, uh, if you remember when he first came back, he was sort of, he seemed like kind of a, um, progressive guy and he had calmed down and he was like making some, uh, mindfulness app with his girlfriend or something. And it took crease pulling him back into Cobra Kai that kind of reawakened that his kind of dirty evil side, but he's still never quite got back to acting over the top. Like he was in Karate Kid three.

[00:20:42] Um, but I feel like in these last few episodes, I don't know if it's been a conscious thing on the part of him or the show, the actor of the show, but I feel like he has come a little bit more towards that. And so here's a clip from him fighting crease to sort of see if we agree with that. I saw you talking to Johnny on the way out. I recognize that.

[00:21:07] Look, so whatever it is that you got planned, it ain't going to happen. Isn't that noble? And pathetic. After all this time, after he rejected you over and over and over, you still can't shed that weakness. On the contrary, he's a source of strength.

[00:21:32] He always has been a student worthy of my dedication, who has since surpassed his teaching. That's a low bar, John. I had to get that last part. That was a low bar, John. But hear how he's kind of hitting the dialogue like that, you know? Yeah. That was definitely some, I think, hints of Terry Silver from Cry to Kid 3. But it is bizarre when you think about it.

[00:22:00] When he did come back like a couple seasons ago, you know, he was chill and seemed kind of zen and kind of moved beyond that. And then he just got, whether you put that on crease or Terry Silver himself, you know, kind of went right back to the old, the old, you know, over the top Terry we knew from, you know, part three. And I, I had to look it up.

[00:22:25] I'd forgotten why they even split, but I think Terry Silver was beating Johnny up in the old Cobra Kai dojo and crease stopped him or something like that. And they're falling out happened because silver thought that crease was trying to protect Johnny and cared about that more than Cobra Kai. So it was actually about Johnny. And then silver had crease frame for beating up stingray, but they were working together for, for a while there. Mm hmm.

[00:22:54] Um, but I think it's, it's also kind of funny that the actor Thomas Ian Griffith, that his acting in Karate Kid 3 was kind of panned because it was so over the top. But I think he's the best actor in Cobra Kai. I think that guy is better than anybody else. Yeah, I do. I thought about it and I was like, okay, who's the best? Who's really good? And I think, um, William Zabka is great, but I just think that Thomas Ian Griffith is more believable.

[00:23:23] Like William Zabka seems a little, I don't know, stilted or not. I don't know how to say it, but I mean, I love watching everything he does, but you know, and Ralph Macchio, he's very uneven. I find him uneven. Sometimes he's great. Sometimes he's not good at all. Yeah. You know, I would agree with that. But Thomas Ian Griffith is really good. And I found out he's, uh, um, he's the Karate Kid 3 was his first movie, but you know, that was 35 years ago now, 30 years ago.

[00:23:53] He's done a lot of TV and movies since then. And he's done a bunch of Shakespeare and he's a writer and a producer right now. He's writing for the Netflix romantic drama series Virgin River, which has seven seasons. And I just found out about it today. That seems to happen to me more and more these days, but it stars Alexander Breckenridge, who was Jesse on walking dead. Walking dead. Mm hmm. I didn't know he was a part of that. I've, I've heard of that because I mean, I've just seen it like when I get on Netflix and I've seen it like available.

[00:24:23] I haven't watched it though, but gets really, I think great ratings and people seem to love it. So that's interesting. I didn't know he was, um, attached to that, I think, but I agree. I think he's really talented and he's come a long way as an, as an actor. And I thought he played, played that part marvelously. All right. I'm going to do a different point about something else since we covered the ending, honoring what came before.

[00:24:49] Because, well, it opens with Daniel and Johnny cruising the valley and Daniel's classic 1948 Ford super deluxe convertible that Miyagi gave him on his 60th birthday in karate kid. And that's the actual car from karate kid, which the producers of karate kid three gave to Ralph Macchio afterwards. Oh, wow. Cool. Yeah. I think he, he said in an interview, yeah, I told them that I would buy it, hoping that they would actually just give it to me.

[00:25:19] And they did. Um, but it, I think showing that car right up front is this show's way of yet again, going back to the beginning and honoring what came before. And I think this series of course has all been about that honoring the karate kid movies, but I think this episode in particular is about that.

[00:25:39] And it got me thinking about how many TVs, uh, shows and movies these days are about our nostalgia for older things or other things. There's so much, so many sequels, reboots, spinoffs, things based on books and games, star Wars, everything, star Wars, Marvel game of throne spinoffs.

[00:26:01] And I, it's because Hollywood knows that safer. It's a safer bet to put out something that's connected to something they know we like already. Right. And so I think the Cobra Kai series is here because the karate kid movies were so popular, but now this show has been so good in and of itself. And it's gone on so long, six seasons that it can have nostalgia for itself.

[00:26:26] And, and one of the Cobra Kai showrunners superpowers is being able to call back to things and use them for new stories and moments, which they did with karate kid movies, but now they're doing it with their own series. So we get the car, which is a reminder of the karate kid movies, but we also get a return to Johnny's old Cobra Kai dojo from the first episode. And it really had me feeling nostalgic for the early days of the show.

[00:26:49] Cause we haven't seen it in a long time. And, and it was good to see him back in there. And I always love when shows, you know, go full circle back to the earlier moments. And there was a lot of that. I'm just going to touch on a few of these. Cause I know we'll probably go deeper into them, but seeing Miguel and Johnny sitting on the curb in front of the dojo. Cause that's where they first met.

[00:27:10] And as Johnny said, he, he was wearing a Pepto Bismol hat, which was, I think Kyler poured it on his head. Right. Yeah. And, and Johnny says to him, I want you to fight for yourself to honor how far you come. So that's another thing that showing these things in the past does. It reminds us how far people have come just seeing Johnny and Daniel in the very first episode of this series showed us how far they came from the movies.

[00:27:38] Um, Johnny and the, the bad direction. Um, and then in seeing the scene in the parking lot reminds us of when Johnny and Miguel were there before and Johnny didn't want to have anything to do with Miguel. And now he's his stepfather and his biggest cheerleader. And also Miguel didn't know how to fight. And now he's on the verge of becoming this world champion.

[00:28:01] Uh, another thing Johnny brings up the 1984 tournament says LaRusso one, because Johnny was focused on revenge and Daniel fought to honor everything he'd learned. I'm like, Hmm, I think Daniel fought to get respect. So you would stop being the shit out of him. But then he kind of says that he fought to show guys. We couldn't get the best of them. Yeah. Yeah. He did say that.

[00:28:22] Uh, Samantha tells Tori about the drum technique that Miyagi taught Daniel in karate kid to, which Daniel used to beat chosen. Um, Tori feels. Nostalgic coming into the Cobra Kai dojo. And then thanks Daniel, Amanda and Sam for everything they've done for her and just kind of names them off, which even brought up by Isha. And that was a really touching moment. Right. Isha. But I'm not going deep into that in case we want to talk about any of this stuff later.

[00:28:51] Robbie telling Tori, no fucking mercy just brings back, brings us back to the beginning too. I think, um, Johnny telling Miguel to go out and give him the best two minutes of karate that you have, you know, everything you learned, every lesson, everyone, every loss. And then we see all the flashbacks of Miguel training. So it's just a really nice way of reminding us about a lot of moments in the series that we may have forgotten.

[00:29:20] Like I forgot that he said, drowning for pussies and give us a good feeling about it all as we wrap it up here. I just love it. Yeah. That was a great summary. Well, between the, these last two episodes, cause the last week we had, uh, all the flashbacks, you got to actually see images and, and pictures from the previous movie. And then, uh, now you got, yeah. And these tons of callbacks between these two episodes, man, it's just a, it's been a wild ride. Yeah.

[00:29:47] I feel like we're watching this really, you know, uh, any movie where it gets, um, I don't want to say sappy cause that's negative, but there's, it's emotional at the end. Only it's like four hours worth of it stretched over four weeks. It's almost too much. It is a lot.

[00:30:13] Well, um, I want to talk about Robbie's speech to Tori. I thought that was cool. Tori went out there ready to go. Zara got in her head cause she's so good at doing Tori's flustered. So Robbie simply says, I love you. Oh, right in the fields. Totally recentered and empowered Tori.

[00:30:38] I mean, Tori's whole character arc, you know, is, was, is, was just looking for love the whole series, basically love and support. And most of the time she was looking for that in the wrong places. And here we get to see her get what she wants and needs at the best possible time. And then also, like you just mentioned, Jay, she also got it from the Lurosos earlier. She acknowledged that when she thinks of anything that's good, you know, that's, that's happened in her life. It was because of them.

[00:31:03] And that, that part resonated with me a little bit because I would be really grateful if, if, uh, to hear that about my family, you know, helping people out. I think that would be totally cool. It was good. It was so nice of her to acknowledge it and to say like, yeah. And then I abandoned you guys right at the end to go train with crease. And, and then, uh, Sam, you're still teaching me the secret advanced Yagi-do methods. It was nice of her to have an awareness that she hasn't always been the nicest, you know? Right.

[00:31:32] And then on Robbie's end of it too, you know, it's not even, not even dwelling or sad or upset. It seems, you know, about his loss and his broken leg as he, as he hobbles over there on his, uh, on his crutches. And it's just like, no, I'm not going to say any of that. I'm just going to say, I love you. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[00:31:55] I, so when Tori and Zara came to the mat and Zara gave her a whole speech, like no one loves you. And, you know, I slept with Robbie and just all really needling her on her, her, you're right. I mean, she want Tori wanted love, but also this is sort of related, but I think she just feels alone. Yeah. That's like the other side of that coin, I guess. But she just feels like abandoned and alone and nobody really cares about her.

[00:32:22] And sometimes she'll, uh, think that even when it's not true and let it, and she'll sabotage herself. And that's what happened here. You know, Zara got in her head and Johnny's trying to give her a pep talk. And I loved how they did that where she couldn't even hear it. And neither could we just cause she's so upset. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Robbie came over and said, I love you. And that shows Robbie. You're good, man. You know exactly what she needed to hear. Because at first I thought, oh, that's nice, but it's a little corny.

[00:32:49] But really it just speaks to her wanting to feel like, no, you're not alone. You do have support, you know, and here's Robbie. And then when they kissed, that was perfect because a needles Zara who wanted to steal Robbie away and failed and be, you know, touch the audience. And they all applauded. So then she could feel, oh, I'm not alone here either. Even though Zara's missed Instagram and has all the support. They like us too. So. Yeah.

[00:33:17] And this is another example too of how in this episode everyone's doing and saying the right things. Yeah. Yeah. And then when he took, and she goes, that's it. And he turned and I thought he was going to say, you know, you go out and kick some ass or something corny. And he goes, no fucking mercy. And I just love that so much because really like, that's what they've kind of been learning not to say, but he just means kick ass. But it was just the perfect way to express it, you know, but she did kind of beat the shit out of her.

[00:33:47] So she really didn't show much mercy. That's right. Yeah. The little teeth line up. Yeah. I guess if it was like super hardcore old school Cobra Kai after she knocked her tooth out and she won the match, she just punched her in the face one or two more times. Punch an eyeball out for good measure. But she, she fucking kicked ass, man. I think she got 44 points. Yeah.

[00:34:15] That, uh, both fights, the, the, the women's and the men's both were excellently choreographed. I mean, God, man, I'm really impressed at how much work they must put into all the practices to do for that. You know? Yeah. It's gotta be. So there was a YouTube video that Peyton listed one time, just showing her a typical day for her on set. And she'd get up at like 4 a.m. and do training and do scenes and squeeze on the meal and all this.

[00:34:44] And it looked so exhausting, but, um, I think it'd be worth it. And plus you'd have this great skill afterwards. Yeah. It's a hell of a workout. Yeah. I must be in good shape. She's ripped. Like, it really showed in this last, um, half how, how jacked she is. She is ripped. Her arms look amazing. Yeah. So is the actual champion. I forget the actress's name, but the lady who plays, uh, Zara. Mm-hmm. Dang.

[00:35:14] She has some legs, man. Yeah. Well, she is, uh, a very skilled martial artist and champion. I know we talked about that before, but yeah. She's for real. Yeah. She's legit. I had texted, uh, I'm just talking to the listeners now, but I texted Rima and Rich a behind the scenes picture of those two just arm in arm smiling together. It's kind of weird to see.

[00:35:40] And I said, this is the finale where Tori dumps Robbie and goes off with Zara. All right. Uh, Rima. What do you got? Well, I mean, Tori was my next point and we we've said a lot, but you know, I've just me personally, I've, I've been rooting for Tori, um, for a while. Now it took me a little while to warm up to her that first season that we were introduced to her. What was it? Season two.

[00:36:09] I was like, I don't know about this girl, but she, um, I warmed up to her and. You know, as I got to know more about her character and more about her story, it felt very relatable to me. So I was really rooting for her to have this kind of outcome. And you make a good point, Jason, you know, it's like, she kind of did a lot of self-sabotage, you know, it's like people, you could see people throughout, you know, the season or series.

[00:37:02] Um, sorry. I think one part of what really made the scene with her and the LaRussos so heartwarming and special, like that scene just really had me cry, crying, um, both times that I watched it, even though I knew what was going to happen. Um, and knowing Amanda, you know, especially had a soft spot for her and, you know, making sure that she was okay.

[00:37:25] And then, you know, when they, when she had that little speech of, you know, all the things that you guys have done for me, you know, and how much it's meant and how, you know, they all just had this touching moment. And it just, it, it was great. It, it just kind of all came, came back around and it, it, it felt right.

[00:37:42] Um, and then seeing how she was able to overcome that first round with, with Zara, you know, um, when she got in her head and she was able to, to come back. And it was like, I think in that moment she, she couldn't hear anything else. You know, like you said, they did a good job with where we couldn't really hear what Johnny was saying to her. It's like, that's not what she was needing in that moment, but Robbie knew what she needed.

[00:38:10] Um, cause Tori has always been a little rough around the edges. And I think she's always kind of felt like, you know, someone like she's not worth caring about is, is how I feel. And when she won the all Valley, she then had this belief that winning, winning that trophy is going to give her her worth and fulfillment and give people a reason to love her. And I don't, and I think she was insecure about, you know, Zara and she got in her head.

[00:38:40] But I think when Robbie then came to her and he's like, I love you. And then she's like, Oh, okay. You know, I think that kind of cleared all that noise, um, out and that she didn't have to, like, if she didn't win the fight and come out on top that people were still going to love her. Like she finally got to a place to be able to accept the love. Like she was able to accept the love the La Russos were giving her. She was able to accept that love from Robbie. Um, and she's just been able to, you know, overcome all of that.

[00:39:09] And I just, I loved that, you know, arc for her. Um, and I really love what Peyton List has brought to the character. I think she really brought this character to life. Um, and I, I love seeing it and I love seeing her fight with Zara. I love how that she adapted, you know, she's like, how am I supposed to fight a human tornado? Which she made a good point. You know, it was the way she's spinning around constantly, you know, Tori's just, she's just straight up.

[00:39:39] She's just going to come in straight at you. But she adapted her fighting style. It was cool. She seemed really centered and grounded in the second one after, after Robbie, where she just was making minimal movements for maximum impact. It was pretty cool. Yeah. She was doing more grappling and she was using her strength more and using her legs more and going like lower and able to dodge, you know, Zara a lot more.

[00:40:06] Um, so she, you know, kind of, she kind of set the pace for the fight kind of, you know, forcing Zara to kind of match what she was doing versus the other way around. And I mean, Tori, she, she, without her, they would not have been able to win. Like you said, she scored like 40 something points in that one round and she only had to go two rounds, not three to be able to, to be able to take her out. So respect to Tori. Welcome to the, what'd you say? Welcome to the Valley, bitch.

[00:40:37] That kick and knocking at her teeth. Oh my gosh. She's a tooth fairy. She was, she was way up high in the air and then just full force come down with the foot right on the jaw. Boom. Yeah. That'll knock out a tooth. And that's bad for Zara who wants to look pretty for all her followers. Oh yeah. She kind of had that gap in her smile. And it wasn't just a tooth. It was teeth. I think she knocked out multiple teeth. You could just see him in slow motion, like with the blood, you know,

[00:41:06] I think Zara deserved that Rima. Yeah. If it, it, I wanted to do that to her character. I think a hundred percent. It's impressive. Yeah. It's cool that Tori was the final kid to fight or, you know, the final girl anyway, Miguel, as you said from day one, he's, I always thought of him. I probably said this a thousand times as the Daniel LaRusso stand in for Cobra Kai.

[00:41:35] So Miguel, it makes sense for him to be the last kid to fight. But Tori didn't come in until season two, but they had Samantha bow out and show her Miyagi-Do learnings where you don't always have to fight. So that let, let room for Tori to be the one to do it at the end. It's pretty cool. Yeah. I've always felt too, that like Miguel, and this is my opinion, but was the better fighter the whole time. Yeah. Like you said, Tori and Miguel are probably the best to somebody that's.

[00:42:04] So that just adds a little bit of fuel to this, you know, fire frenzy of fists and feet and karate. Yeah. And I think, um, maybe Amanda, I might just be reading into it, but she has taken an interest in Tori from the start and maybe she even said something. I think she did about her own past Amanda that I forget what it was, but. She said she may have made some mistakes too or something.

[00:42:34] But she said it earlier in the series. She was more. Oh, early in the series. What was it? I, I don't remember the exact, uh. She like beat up a car or something. Yeah. She sounded like she had a bit of a troubled teenager time in her life too, where she was a bit of a troublemaker and didn't come from the best background and, you know, had, was able to relate to Tori in, in that way. And here she says, because when Tori says, I don't know what I did to deserve all this. Well, I'll tell you what you did.

[00:43:02] You took every punch of the life through you and you kept fighting. And I think she's relating to that, you know? And then she said, we've all made mistakes. And Daniel said, what matters is how willing we are to acknowledge those mistakes and how we move on from them. And I thought, man, I wish some of our political leaders would learn that lesson. Sorry, this is real life. I'm not a fantasy show. All right. Good. Rima, my turn. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Do a short one. Daniel being supportive.

[00:43:33] So, so Daniel talked Zakarian, the owner of the dojo space down to a reasonable rate, rented out the place in Johnny's name so he could train Miguel and Tori there. Is it believable that that place would, wouldn't be occupied? No. Right. Well, I didn't have that question. That's a good question. But I did have questions as far as like the timing of all of this. Yeah, I think it's not that much time.

[00:43:59] I think in two years, they've all grown seven years. Even just seeing those flashbacks of Miguel, he looked like such a baby. He looked like a little boy. Yeah. And, but I think it's been two years since the series started. Anyway, it doesn't really matter. It's just a dumb nitpick. But Daniel did that nice thing and he, he's saying, no, this isn't just a train. It's to bring Cobra Kai all the way back. Yeah. You win this tournament.

[00:44:30] You'll be known for being a world champion. You can start with a clean slate. So nice. But I was wondering what you guys think of Daniel being the one to spur that on versus Johnny just having the idea to do it himself or something. I think it totally fits in the whole Miyagi-Do, you know, mantra of, what did he say? You learn to fight so you don't have to fight.

[00:44:58] He's finally accepted, you know, that, hey, man, I know what I know. I'm good with myself. I'm self-actualized. Now let's help out my friend here. Do his Cobra Kai thing because he believes that Johnny also feels that now too, you know? Johnny's not going to, you know, screw this up and do the whole, you know, you got to beat people up because you need to beat people up and show no mercy. He's going to, there's more of a, uh, uh, there's more of a philosophy behind it now for him. Yeah.

[00:45:25] When he said something about, I don't believe in this type of fighting, but I believe in you. That was so nice. Yeah. I, and I agree with everything that you said, Richard, that, you know, Johnny's not season one Johnny anymore. And I think that, you know, Daniel, he, he knows he's got a different way of teaching. And even though Daniel doesn't necessarily agree with that style, he trusts Johnny and has faith in him.

[00:45:54] And, and, and I love that. I love seeing that relationship build, you know, between them. And he, and just because this is Daniel's way, which shows growth from Daniel too, because he's not. So no, your way is just wrong, you know, cause Daniel can be so black and white sometimes, or at least in the past. I think he's gotten better in this episode, but you know, before he was like always so black and white about it. And I think he's realized there's more gray there and that like, well, I don't agree so much with this style.

[00:46:22] So I, I trust you and have faith in you. Um, and I, I loved all of that. Like I said, just cried the whole damn. That's kind of reminds me of how I was with this podcast network. When we first started building it out, getting more podcasts, I was really micromanaging. And then I was like, no, I can't try to make everyone do it exactly the way I want to do it. That's no good.

[00:46:54] Let them do their thing and be, be, be, be what they want to be. Um, but, um, I liked that when Daniel was saying this, like, he's like, if you could lead Tori and Miguel to victory tomorrow, your, your Cobra Kai will be the Sakai Tai Kai champions. That's what it will be known for. And you'll be the sensei who made it happen. Clean slate. As he's saying all this, they're playing that classic karate kid pan flute music, which means there's some healthy relating going on and some growing.

[00:47:22] They gave that to Johnny and Daniel and he goes, this feels like a yes. And Johnny says, that's a, that's a hell yeah. And then they bow to each other and there's, there's a lot of bowing to each other lately. And it just shows they've come to a place of respect and honor with each other. And I love that. And it's sort of feels like the same vibe of just honoring the karate kid movies that these showrunners do.

[00:47:44] And also I was just thinking, as you guys were talking about Johnny and Daniel getting along, I'm so glad that they didn't concoct reasons for them to be at odds. I mean, over this last season, they have been at odds at time, but it's more like a bickering married couple than anything. And they get back together pretty quickly, you know? And now over the last few, they're just like total brothers. So it's like, yeah, it's really cool. So it's so heartwarming to see. I totally agree.

[00:48:12] I'm so glad they don't have another, they didn't have another falling out for some stupid reason. Yeah. It would have been bad, bad timing. I think. Yeah. They've got plenty of other points of conflict with other characters and stuff. They don't need to make these two. It's just really fun to just see them supporting each other. Yeah. Yeah. And they're stronger together. Like look what they've, look what they've done and accomplished when they get along more.

[00:48:37] It's a good point because yeah, grace and silver, uh, but always like, uh, work them against each other. That was one of their tactics, you know, dividing. Once you take that away, they don't got much left. Good point. Yeah. It wasn't hard to do at first. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't too much of a stretch to get those two butting heads. All right. Rich, you got any more? Um, uh, oh, Miguel's fight. Yeah.

[00:49:07] I wrote down some, uh, highlights of Miguel's fight. Um, the first thing that comes to mind was, was that hit that Axel put on Miguel and he hit the, he hit the ground head first. I mean, I wonder how they did that stunt because his legs were literally up in the air behind him while his face hit them. Was he on wires or something? I don't know how they did that. And it looked like it was him. It didn't look like it was a stunt double. So that was pretty impressive. Yeah. That worried me.

[00:49:37] Johnny with his points are for pussies. That was pretty funny. He said a lot of things are for pussies, but I'm like points are for pussies. That's funny and kind of weird. But, and then the, the whole deal with Wolf, Sensei Wolf talking about breaking Miguel's spine to Axel. I was like, Ooh, God, that's a bit much. And then I kind of, I don't know.

[00:50:01] I, I didn't really care for the whole, that whole thing because in the Axel, he goes out there, you know, he's, he's like, all right, you think he's probably going to do it. I don't know. You're, I don't know. He maybe looked a little bit on the fence about it, but then he looks at Sam, you know, and as he's contemplating trying to break Miguel's back when the sensei and silver are like, there, there, do it now, do it now. I didn't care for that because it, it makes the whole situation feel like Axel's in complete control.

[00:50:28] Like he's just going to get the decide if Miguel's going to win or not, you know, for some reason, I didn't care for that. I w I would rather have seen Axel try something dirty and then Miguel like totally avoid it or block it and then just continue to kick his ass even harder. I think that would have been cool. Yeah. It's interesting because well, it's supposed to mirror, I mean, the several times that you've heard Cobra Kai teachers tell one of their students to,

[00:50:53] try to incapacitate someone, usually Daniel and you know, like the first one was Bobby in the tournament where he jumped up and kicked him in the shin. Um, so, but it's an escalation of that cause it would cripple him for life. Probably have a pretty good chance of doing that. And yeah, the way it played out, I mean, it made sense to me for Axel's character because he's never seemed like, like Remus pointed out too. He's never seemed like a bad guy.

[00:51:19] He's just, well, as they say, it's no such thing as bad student, only bad teacher, but, um, especially him. He seems like he, he's a pretty okay guy that we know hanging out with, uh, Samantha on the beach. He seemed pretty cool, a little obsessive, but, but, uh, anyway, so it made sense for his character. But then, um, then Robbie, I mean, Miguel didn't even know that he decided to play fair or he could have really. Yeah.

[00:51:44] So that was a little sad for Axel, but, um, maybe that, I think that's why they had him go over and break up with his teacher just to sort of give him a little bit of a win there at the end. Yeah. Yeah. I get why it was written into the script and why they put that in there, but it just takes a little bit away from Miguel. I felt because I was, I was like, I was really on Miguel side. I just wanted to see him go all in like he did, but like even more, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know how to say. Well, I know what you mean.

[00:52:12] Cause these tournaments are like, especially in Karate Kid, cause these kids on Cobra Kai are just so much more kick-ass than Daniel. So it wasn't Karate Kid, uh, because he didn't, but, um, in Karate Kid, it seemed like it's just for points. So you're trying to hit him in the chest. You don't even have to hit him that hard. And so it's not a real fight and the way they're fighting in Cobra Kai, it seems like a real fight.

[00:52:37] So yeah, it would almost make more sense if Axel had tried to do something real like that and hurt him and Miguel could counter it. And like you're saying, right. That would have been awesome. Awesome. And then lastly, that, uh, same with, um, uh, like one of the ending moves Miguel did. He did this, he did this upper roundhouse kick, uh, as he did a backflip and kick the axle in the face, man, that was completely bad-ass.

[00:53:03] I want to know like how much of this was done for real and how much of it was like on wires or something. Cause it looked really good. I want to say they did it for real in real time. You know what I mean? That was cool. A good way to end the fight. Yeah. Didn't disappoint. Really good fight. Really good. I, um, let's see, what do I would say about this? In training Wolf makes it clear.

[00:53:31] He wants Axel to fight dirty and he demonstrates by injuring one of his students right there. Here, let me show you breaks his shoulder or whatever. And he smacks Axel in the head. I'm like, how long would you stay in that school? Yeah. They could probably go home right about then. Um, and then just having it be Miguel versus Axel in the end. Um, I always thought that whatever an end fight for the series would be, would be with

[00:54:00] kind of a long time enemy and Axel's relatively new, but there aren't any left because the show humanizes all the bad guys over time. So they just picked Axel is just the best fighter. That's why he's the one at the end. You know, he's a machine. Yeah. He's a machine. Plot twist. The next episode is going to be all about Axel and his journey. Maybe he'll join Cobra Kai.

[00:54:28] How the next 35 years have been hell for him because of his sensei. Dude, I bet you will join Cobra Kai. I wouldn't be surprised at that. Oh, yeah. It'd be a cool way to kind of end up the series if he walks into the Cobra Kai dojo. You have any more, Rima? More points? I mean, just to add to, I can't, I can't not talk about my boy Miguel.

[00:54:57] Just so, so many things. And we've already talked about a lot of it, but I liked the conversation with him and Johnny that we talked about earlier when they were sitting on the curb outside of the Cobra Kai dojo. And, you know, kind of learning that Miguel's motivation for the fight goes back to like anger and revenge and, you know, which seems like, okay, yeah, it makes sense.

[00:55:23] But then like when Johnny's talking to him and saying, hey, that's like, that's not going to do you any good. That's how I lost that fight, right? 1984. And that that can't be the motivator for him as he goes into that fight and that he needs to fight for himself and honor everything that's been taught to him. And it just, I loved how they were just bringing everything back.

[00:55:46] And it was gratifying to see not just Johnny and Miguel, but how all this came around for Johnny and Daniel. It's like the tables have really turned because now Johnny and Daniel are seeing eye to eye. Like Johnny understands Miyagi-Do and has learned and grown from that. Daniel has come to respect Johnny's way of teaching and trust him and has faith in him.

[00:56:11] And Johnny, you never would have seen this in the first season, but Johnny urging Miguel to be less like him and more like Daniel. Like he's like, don't be like me. Don't do what I did. Be more like this. And I thought that was a great way to kind of bring everything back around.

[00:56:34] And I liked the fact that Sensei Wolf, you know, totally just underestimated Miguel because he tells Axel, he's like, you know, you've got this. He was trained Miyagi-Do. Like he's not going to have anything on you. Like completely not even taking into account that what makes Miguel such an awesome fighter was his first trainings with Johnny and learning under Cobra Kai.

[00:57:03] And learning those offensive teachings, not just the defensive Miyagi-Do teachings, but the offensive. So I think taking all of that in to the fight is what really, I think, helped him. And I love how they played the flashbacks. You know, you were talking earlier about the flashbacks that we had from the first movie. And then in this episode, we got the flashbacks of Miguel's fights, all those wins, all those losses.

[00:57:31] And to see how far it's like Miguel is the karate kid. Like he's this new karate kid for this new generation. Like you see everything that he's overcome and how far he has gotten from that scrawny little kid that we met in season one to this badass in this finale to go against someone like Axel. I mean, he's the best. Miguel is the best. I think he's the best fighter out of all the boys on the show.

[00:57:59] And I mean, I and I have conflicting feelings about about Axel. I mean, I'm sure he could have really taken him out and really hurt him. But I think he really just wanted to fight with honor. Like he was disgusted with what he did to Robbie. He didn't he didn't want to do that. He did it under the threat of his sensei and Terry Silver. And I think that's all he's known.

[00:58:26] I mean, since a wolf said, you know, I've trained you since you were a kid. And it's hard when you've had that ingrained in you from such a young age that that's all that, you know, to like go against that. And I think it was a really big hurdle for Axel to stand up and be like, no, I'm not going to do that again. Like he was, I think, really ashamed of what he of what he did to Robbie. Like he didn't have to like he he is a really great fighter.

[00:58:53] He doesn't have to like cripple someone or injure someone to that extent to win. And and I do think Miguel was able to overcome him because he. I think he had I mean, I think he had it in him. So I don't know. I was really proud of my boy, Miguel. I just cried the entire time when Johnny took off his black headband and put it on Miguel. I had such a visceral reaction. It's not even funny. I'm glad nobody was around.

[00:59:20] I lost my shit like it was over for me. Gotta watch the show by yourself. I do watch it by myself, but I'm glad I watch it by myself in that moment because I just lost. I mean, I'm literally tearing up right now and I can feel it all coming back to me now. I'm getting all verklempt. Just playing it back in my head. And I'm so glad because it just was like I lost it. Absolutely lost it. It was fabulous. That's cool.

[00:59:52] All right. My last point is called next week. Johnny versus Wolf. So the the ref guy Braun says or the MC for the first time in our long and storied history, the Sekai Tai Kai has ended in a tie. Fortunately, we have a protocol in place for just such an occasion. Per tradition, our overall champion will be determined by one final match between the dojos to be fought by their senseis.

[01:00:22] Oh, I just made that up right now. One final twist. And I was like, honestly, that is so fucking ridiculous. Like, come on. Like Johnny's 53 or something. And Wolf is like 35 in his prime. And and what if I mean, the senseis, maybe they're not training or, you know, it's it's really it's really ridiculous. And they don't even they don't even question it.

[01:00:51] But it's a fantasy. It's fine. And yeah, and I wouldn't have predicted this, but it seems kind of inevitable now that it's happened, which which is great. And it's it's perfect because if Johnny wins, then he gets to prove himself a winner after all these years of being kind of a loser in his life. He cements Cobra Kai's legacy as world champions. He sets up this great future for himself and his family. So I'm like, hmm, I wonder who's going to win. Right.

[01:01:19] How can it be a tradition if it's never happened before? He said as we have a protocol in place for just such an occasion per tradition. You're right. I don't know. That doesn't. What if Johnny just refuses to fight? Don't don't start applying logic now. Yeah. What if he loses? Oh, shit. That would be absolutely devastating.

[01:01:41] It's interesting because you could have two champions who aren't from the dojo that wins. Yeah. Wins the whole thing just because of the whole points thing. Yeah. But I like that Johnny asked Daniel to be a sensei one last time. Yeah.

[01:02:02] And it seems clear that Daniel's going to retire after this, which I hope they have enough connective thread between this and the Karate Kid Legends movie coming up. But I also, instead of Johnny just being back at the same Cobra Kai dojo, I kind of hope we see that he starts a chain or something. More signs of success.

[01:02:29] I mean, if he wins, then, I mean, not only does it look already good on him because he has two students that won, but if he wins, then it puts his dojo at the top. Yeah. And his students have won, gets his name out there, then everybody's going to want to come train Cobra Kai. Cobra Kai. I can totally see him franchising. You'd hope. Yeah. I want to, I want to see that. Oh, that'd be cool. Him franchising.

[01:02:59] And then Robbie and Miguel taking over some of the places, right? Maybe. Everybody's got a job. Well, like you said, Miguel, you know, seemed fine with Samantha going off to Okinawa, but I sort of wonder if he'll follow her out there or something. I don't know. We'll see. But I, I'm sure we'll at least see Johnny get a new house and move his family in. Cause that was a big plot point. Yeah. His big motivator for all of this was to be able to take care of his family. Yeah. I want to see that for him.

[01:03:30] All right. Let's move on to notes, Rich. Um, I don't have that much in the way of notes. I thought the tour of the Valley was kind of touching at the very beginning. You know, we spent all this time there. Uh, they didn't show the golf place though, which I was a little surprised. They were just, yeah, I think they were more showing flavor of the Valley. So the point of that wasn't like to point out anything from the series, but more just

[01:03:59] to get a feel for the, the place, you know, well, kind of like also, cause that was kind of a theme, uh, throughout was like, show them how we do it. And then like Tori, or, you know, welcome to the Valley. So, yeah, I think it just kind of added some extra flavor. Yeah. What, uh, have a note here that sensei Wolf said to Axel, it's not a sport. It's a fight. That kind of confused me.

[01:04:29] Is that true? I thought it was a fighting sport. I think what he's saying is that we're not playing games here. This is real. That kind of thing, you know? So forget that it's a sport. Yeah. Fight. Play hard. For real. It's real. Yeah. Yeah. Cause earlier we, I mean, it just made me think of that because earlier we were talking about how, uh, I forget it was a Rima or Jason was talking about, um, the way they have

[01:04:57] to score points in this isn't like a real fight, you know? I mean, I mean, you're not, your, your goal isn't, I mean, it's a tournament. It's it, it, you should just be trying to score points. You're not trying to. I'm thinking it's someone. I mean, I guess if you do land it, there's a knockout 20 points. Yeah. You can't. Well, but I mean, you're not, but he was like breaking the bones of his students and, you know, telling him to break. I mean, that's there's levels. Yeah. That's not what you're supposed to do.

[01:05:27] The karate kid tournament where you just need to get three points and you could just hit them in the chest. Not that hard and get a point. And then this one, you can actually knock somebody out, but that's not the same as like saying you can break somebody's arm or something like in, like in a mixed martial arts. Yeah. Do they break bones in that ever? Break his back. Do they break bones in MMA? By accident? Well, I mean. Oh, yeah.

[01:05:56] No, I don't really try to, but there have been. There have been. It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. Yeah. I mean, it can get kind of brutal. I've seen one where the dude's like leg just snapped. Yeah. Cool. But that, you know, a lot of those breaking bones are the people like someone's trying to kick someone and they break their leg bone. Oh, they kind of do it to themselves. It's not like people are out there trying to take them, you know, in this corner and trying to break it. Mostly the holes and stuff like that.

[01:06:24] Well, there's not, at least in MMA, there's usually not a lot of rules. You know, it's kind of a free for all. Well, we need a league with absolutely no rules. You can bring any weapon in. Then we'll talk from Bloodsport. Yeah, Bloodsport. Roid rage. Get Van Damme. Any more notes, Rich? Yeah. Dimitri. Dimitri and Hawk. A nice little resolution there. But kind of like, oh, really?

[01:06:54] Dimitri's just going to change schools like that after throwing a five episode tantrum about MIT. Going to MIT. It's like. And I have expected Hawk to be like, dude, stop stalking me. Can't you take a hint? Okay. I did go into get into MIT. Now I'm going to go there. Yeah. But, you know, it's the binary brothers forever, bro. Yeah. It was nice. It was cool.

[01:07:21] And, oh, then lastly, I laughed a little bit out loud when at the end, everyone was celebrating Miguel as champion. And then the announcer comes on the MC. He's like, oh, looks like we have a tie. I know. I'm going to do this pan where everybody looks over at the scoreboard kind of Sam Raimi style. I was like, how did no one notice this before? But I thought that was pretty funny. It's like, oh, nobody noticed the scoreboard.

[01:07:48] Well, because before it would just have the names of the fighters in that tournament and their score in that match. I mean, it wouldn't have the total match score up on the screen until the end there. That's why I think. But yeah, then he said one final match. And I was like, who's that going to be? Like, they're going to have Robbie and Akl fight again. That'll be boring. So he said the sensei. He's got to, they're going to have to fight me.

[01:08:18] Yeah. Fight Gunther. Me and Daryl. Yeah. Or whatever his name is. That's all my notes. Rima? I have a few notes and then I have a couple of call outs, which I guess I can consider notes. But I was curious, you know, we were talking earlier about Miguel finding the letter that Sam had about her going to Okinawa. And then I remember watching that and I was like, does Sam just carry that letter around with her?

[01:08:47] I mean, it's kind of random that she would just have it with her while she's at the tournament. Miguel just happens to find it. Yeah. It's kind of weird. Yeah. Um, some of those notes we've already talked about. I had a couple of call outs, which I thought were kind of fun. Um, so the second episode of the series was titled strike first and this episode, which is the penultimate, which is the second to last titled strike last.

[01:09:14] So I like how they kind of, well, then the first one's ACE degenerate and the very last episodes X degenerate. Right. I wonder if every, we should go back and look and see if every episode is the opposite of whatever number it was. Oh yeah. I doubt it. I did not go back that far, but, um, didn't, did notice that. Too impressive. Um, the, so each round.

[01:09:39] And so this is talking about the fights, um, for Miguel and, uh, Tori and what the, like the parallels between them. So each round of Miguel and Axel's fight, you had, um, one of the two combatants going back and forth without taking a strike from the other opponent. So like Miguel gained five points in the first round and then Axel gained, uh, 15 in the second round. Um, but then in the third, Miguel came back and he gained 20.

[01:10:06] Um, so the same thing kind of, or similar happened with Tori and Zara. Zara went that whole first round, you know, getting all the points on Tori and Tori didn't score any. And then when she came back in the second round, Tori just laid out Zara and Zara didn't score any points on her and she just totally took her down. So I thought it was kind of cool that both of those fights kind of paralleled each other where each opponent was scoring without the other being able to gain any points.

[01:10:36] Yeah. Good point. Contributed well. Yeah. So the third episode is called Esqueleto of the first season. And that means skeletons in, in English. Oh, really? The third to last is skeletons. But then, uh, the fourth to last is called rattled. And the fourth episode is called Cobra Kai never dies.

[01:11:05] So it's just those three, but that's still pretty cool. That's a nice little tie in. Yeah. Um, I don't think I could be a writer. That's too much to read them. You know, the good thing is, is you've got writing assistants and thing, people like that, keeping, keeping track of that stuff for you. They probably got like this binder. Well, I mean, podcasting has made me feel more impressed with how much attention to detailer is and all these little things that I never would have caught otherwise. Yeah, totally.

[01:11:33] Yeah, it definitely gives you more appreciation because you take a deeper dive in, in, into things and into the details than if you're just more casual watching. Um, the last was just kind of a nitpick more about you, like Jason, you mentioned earlier about like, uh, Daniel renting out, um, the Cobra Kai space, uh, Johnny's dojo. And I was just like, what is this timeline? Like when they, when they were coming back for the fight, they had, they had like one day.

[01:12:03] There's like one day between, um, the last episode and when, uh, Miguel and Tori have to fight and it's like, well, one, I felt like he was training them really hard knowing that they have a fight the next day. I mean, I'm sure that they need to train, but I'm like, man, that's like, they're hitting the baseballs out of the baseball machine. Yeah. I'm like, that seems pretty hardcore. I caught that too. They got a fight the next day. Give me 50 more. It's like, oh my God. I'm like, I'm like, don't they need a little bit of energy?

[01:12:33] Of course. Of course. I mean, they got to show some of that training and they got to show everybody coming together to help, help them train and Daniel called them over. He's like, we need to go somewhere at 5am Johnny, trust me. And they went over and saw the dojo and then called the kids and they came over and trained. That's what my, right. It just, the timeline did just feel kind of weird. Like how did he manage to get the old Cobra Kai dojo back the same day that Johnny announced,

[01:13:02] you know, the, the switch to Cobra Kai and the, the, you know, Miguel switching over to Cobra Kai. And then, you know, and then Sam, we didn't know yet that she had been accepted to the Okinawa program. Like we knew she had, like, she just had that conversation with Tori. Like, oh, I just applied for this program. And now all of a sudden she's got the acceptance letter. Like she already has it. I don't know. Just, it was like the timing of all of this happening just felt very weird.

[01:13:28] Um, but that's a nitpick, um, you know, that I. Yeah. Cause I just said a minute ago, you realize you appreciate the attention to detail more when you podcast and you also figure out a bunch of mistakes and flubs. Yeah. Shortcuts. Yeah. And I don't want to, I don't want to focus on that. It's definitely doesn't, it was like no big deal, but I was just like, wait a minute. Wait, huh? How did that happen so fast?

[01:13:53] When they flew back to the States and back to Spain seemingly overnight to get back to the tournament. Don't worry. So just hop a flight because it's so easy to travel internationally. Anyway, that's all that I have. All, all good stuff though. I only had one more. It's a question. I didn't understand. Hopefully you can understand. You can tell me this card that Miguel's looking at. On the sidelines of the tournament. It said, thank you for always having my back. Love.

[01:14:22] There are a lot of people I'm fighting for today, but just between us, you're my favorite little heart. Love always Miguel. So I'm like, did he write that for himself or I must be missing something, right? I assume that was what he was putting into Sam's jacket. Yeah. Which is why he saw the acceptance line. Oh. Yeah. He was writing out. And that whole, the octopi card, if I'm saying that right, is kind of a little inside

[01:14:52] thing between him and Sam. Because I think, didn't she give him a card? Yeah. Didn't he win? He won it at golf and stuff, like a stuffed octopus or something maybe? I can't remember. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Good. Good memory. Yes. I knew there was something with an octopus between them two. And yeah, so he was writing that card out to Sam. He was going to go leave it like under her coat there on the bleachers. And then that's when he found the letter. Okay. That makes a lot of sense.

[01:15:21] I just kept thinking he wrote himself a nice letter. Good old pep talk, Miguel. Self-motivation. I love myself. Love you, man. No fucking mercy. Doing that stare in the mirror. Doing that motivational speech in the mirror. I'm good enough. Darn it, people like me.

[01:16:19] Just one thing in the news. I just learned recently, maybe you guys already knew this, but Peyton List, who plays Tori, is starring in this 2023 Netflix series called School Spirits. And people say she's really good in it. The synopsis says, set in the fictional town of Split River, Wisconsin, the show follows Maddie, who's Peyton List, a teen girl stuck in the afterlife investigating her own mysterious disappearance.

[01:16:47] She goes on a crime-solving journey as she adjusts to high school in the afterlife. But the closer she gets to the truth, the more secrets and lies she discovers. And season two just came out a month ago. So that's, I heard she's good in it. I'd be interested to see her playing a different role and see if she's just walking around frowning all the time, just like she does in Cobra Kai. Going to be playing a high school student well into her 30s. She'd be like Ralph Macchio.

[01:17:16] I've seen it advertised, but I haven't watched it or didn't really know what it was about. But I was like, hey, that looks like Peyton List from Cobra Guy. Yeah, I'm glad to see she's been in a lot of stuff, actually. She's got a long list. Good for her. She deserves it. I think she's done a really great job with Tori, so she deserves all the success. All right. We have no text comments this week, but we do have three calls. Here's the first one from Steve Brown.

[01:17:45] Hello, Cobra Kai cast. This is Steve. I can't believe it. Here we are to the second to the last episode of Cobra Kai strike last. When we start with, maybe this is a flashback showing that's Daniel's car, the one that Miyagi gave him. Oh, I guess it's not a flashback. Oh, and they're just cruising through, I guess, Santa Monica. I'm not sure. But it's Southern California. Wow. All these shots. Mel's Burger. Yeah. All these different places that they're cruising past is amazing.

[01:18:16] Bring me back. I grew up in Southern California, but it's been a long time. Ooh, they're at the Cobra Kai dojo. Ooh. And we do see that Sensei Wolf is not a good teacher. Seeing these contrasting training styles in this whole montage here with Miguel and Axel and Tori and Zara. Okay. I had to pause it for a second because I'm getting really emotional about this episode. I don't know why. It's really, gosh, pulling at the heartstrings.

[01:18:42] I love that talk there between Miguel and Johnny. And now with Tori talking to the ruses. Oh, I'm getting choked up just even. So thank you to this podcast for showing me just how great this show is. And going all the way back to the original Karate Kid movie and the Karate Kid 2 with the drum technique. Wow. Moon admitting they were on purpose calling it TMI instead of MIT to Demetri who's now into Caltech. Ooh.

[01:19:10] And there's a TKO rule in this final fight. Ooh. Zara trying to get into Tori's head here is this bad move. Robbie knows the right pep talk to give. Wow. I'm still emotional. Ooh. Did Tori just, no, just knocked her out. There's still 20 minutes left. So are we going to see all of Miguel's fight as well? Oh, Miguel just found the letter, Sam's letter, that she's going to Okinawa. That's not good. That's going to get in his head. All right. Here we go. Miguel's taking the high road. But ooh, this fight's going to be tough. Okay. I know they have to build drama.

[01:19:40] So, but that talk that Wolf just gave to Axel. Ooh. Ooh. Less than nothing. Ooh. Oh, knockdown by Axel. But at least he stopped when the bell hit. Ooh. Grandma Diaz getting into it. And now Miguel with the black headband. Ooh. Ooh, Wolf reminding Axel about the spine injury Miguel has. Oh, Miguel adapted his style. And he got the knockdown. I don't know if there could be enough total points, but damn, good fight. Ooh. Are the points tied? Does that mean the senseis are going to have to fight? Of course. It is their senseis.

[01:20:10] All the little headphones on the baby to protect her ears. Aw. How cute. But Terry's trying to get into Johnny's head here. Oh, Johnny asking Danny, Daniel to be his sensei. Oh. Ooh. And Silver sending his thug over after Johnny's family. What's the next episode going to bring? Wait. Somebody attacked Silver's thug. Oh, Kreese and Silver. Who's going to win this fight? Oh. Oh. Okay. I saw it coming with a gas spill, but wow. The yacht blows up and now I got to wait a week.

[01:20:40] That was amazing. That was your best one yet, Steve. So good. Yeah. Thank you. Saying the podcast made it worth it. That's really nice to hear. And for everybody listening, just know that this podcast doesn't get a whole lot of downloads compared to the other podcasts that we do, but it's still probably my favorite to do. And that's why I'm like, fuck it. I'm going to keep doing it because I love this show and I appreciate you guys who have listened

[01:21:07] and who've called and written in or just listened. It's great. Yeah. It's been a wild ride, man. All right. Here's Alex Kruger. Hey, y'all. Alex Kruger here leaving feedback for Cobra Kai Season 6, Episode 14, Strike Last. I will say I was surprised that the buildup to the final matches only lasted about 15 minutes, but it was fun to get a competing dojos training montage.

[01:21:32] Though I have to ask, if your job as a student in a dojo was exclusively to be cannon fodder for the primary fighters to beat up and potentially break limbs off of, why the hell are you staying? Iron Dragon Kids. I'm so sorry for your lot in life. It seems brutal. You know what else seemed brutal? The way Tori eventually kicked Zara's ass. I like the silly little I love you from Robbie being the thing that brought Tori back into badass mode. And I loved seeing her thoroughly demolish Zara.

[01:22:00] But holy hell, the acrobatics in that fight were delightful. I have to hand it to Miguel. I never expected him to be so mature and understanding and cool with the Samantha Okinawa trip, but I'm so flipping glad he was. Our baby boy is finally leveled up into the supreme badass he is. Boy, was he. I'm not going to lie. I blubbered like a big old baby as they went through the montage of Miguel's journey and our journey with him these last six seasons. I forget who said it on last week's cast, but the one-two punch of Johnny and Miguel is

[01:22:30] just absolutely everything for me in this show. Miguel, Miggy, Blue Beetle, El Serpiente, Rhea, whatever you want to know. We all watched him grow up before our eyes, go from a scrappy little nothing to a champion, to a temporary paraplegic, to a badass again. Now he's a world champion. Sholo is such an amazing actor. And I really hope James Gunn can make Blue Beetle hum because I need more of this dude on my screen.

[01:22:56] Now, I never anticipated that this series would hinge on, essentially, Rocky having to take down Ivan Drago with Apollo Creed as his sensei, but hey, here we are. Also, Rima, major props to how perfectly described the Drago isn't a machine, he's a man, he can bleed bit from last episode. Top notch. I am so happy Johnny gets his moment. After everything that happened between him and Kreese last episode, and the closure, and him getting a chance to erase the loser feeling deep in his heart since December of

[01:23:25] 1984, hell yeah. Bring on the series finale. All right. Only two more spinoff pitches left, and Jason said they're getting better every week, so no pressure, right? Anyways. But this week, I say we give the people what they want. Well, probably not rich, but still. We get a double spinoff. Call it The Dojo, as in The Office. And it's a PBS crew following around the Cobra Kai Dojo, filming a documentary about how Johnny is going to rebrand the dojo after winning the Psi Kai Tai Kai.

[01:23:56] And just to really have fun in this universe, perhaps Miguel gets represented by Athlete, or Athlete, or whatever the hell Jim and Daryl's company is calling themselves these days. That's it for me, folks. I can't believe we're at the last episode already. This has been so much fun. Keep up the great work, and as always, don't get kicked. I feel like that- That's great. That spinoff might be the most likely.

[01:24:20] It wouldn't be documentary Office style, but maybe following more Cobra Kai, more Dojo. I don't know, though. It might be too samey. I don't know. But it seems to me there's been serious, well, not even hints, but just straight out saying they'd like to do a Miyagi prequel series. But it feels like there's been hints about following some of the kids around somewhere. Maybe they'll do Caltech with Demetrian Hawk or something like that. I don't know.

[01:24:51] Binary bros. Maybe. But I don't know. I think... I mean, there could be potential for spinoffs, but sometimes I think that what makes it so special is all the characters and the interactions between all the characters. When you remove sometimes certain characters from the rest of the story, it's not as interesting. I'm not saying it's not possible, but sometimes it doesn't...

[01:25:21] Lightning doesn't always strike twice sometimes. Yeah. It's surprising. They'd have to really make it its own thing. Like one thing, one show that I'm always amazed by is Frasier, that it turned out as good as it did. You would never think that that show would. Yeah, that's true. But I don't know. The idea of a Demetri Hawk series does not excite me at all. On the other hand, Miyagi prequel, if done well, could be pretty good. Yeah, I think Miyagi has the best chance.

[01:25:51] He's got the most rich backstory. All right. One more call from good old Mike. Hey, Jason, Remo, and Richard. It's Mike C for the penultimate time, this time with my feedback for Cobra Kai Season 6, episode 14, Strike Last. And this episode, much like our Cobra Kai champions, kicked ass and took names. It was cathartic as hell to watch.

[01:26:18] Tori finally earning her championship win, bare and square. And in doing so, literally knocking the teeth out of the social media beauty queen that is Zara. Cathartic as hell. And when Rocky finally made Drago bleed. Oh, man, I'm sorry. Wrong movie. And when Miguel gets in there and draws on all of his positive memories, including his family and his friends and everything that he's gone through and all the work that he's done to be there.

[01:26:45] And he draws on all of that and it fuels him to beat the shit, the living tar out of what's his nuts. I'm just going to call him Drago. Cathartic as hell. So, yeah. Both of those outcomes were awesome. But I want to talk about Cobra Kai doing something that it doesn't usually do. And that's not subvert your expectations, which is something that I feel like it eventually had to do. Right.

[01:27:11] Like we we watch these these fights previously and there's almost always something that comes in and subverts our expectations. Right. Oh, the ref was was bought by Terry Silver. Oh, you know, Robbie was was injured and couldn't fight fully or whatever. I forget what happened in the first tournament, but there's always something right.

[01:27:35] Like there's there's always something that makes it not a legitimate victory or there's there's something that just completely twists and subverts your expectations altogether. But ultimately, we we couldn't do that here. Right. Because we need it. It's the end of the series and we need our dudes to win. We need Tory to win. We need Miguel to win. We need the Iron Dragons to lose. We need Cobra Kai to win.

[01:28:00] And so I am grateful that at least in this these two instances that we didn't subvert expectations like we normally do. But that said, Cobra Kai does have one more expectation subversion lined up on the shelf for you. And that's with the senseis are going to fight. Hell yeah. I'm here for it. So, yeah, this makes a lot of sense that they're going to fight. And I always kind of suspected they would.

[01:28:30] They've obviously been building them towards that. I just kind of thought it would be outside of the tournament. Right. Like something like we had at the end of season five where they kind of barnstormed the Cobra Kai dojo. I thought we might have some kind of, you know, outside of the tournament fight where they come to blows. But this actually makes a lot more sense. If you're looking to kind of bookend the series, you know, the Karate Kid one movie.

[01:28:58] It all was about the tournament building the tournament and ended with the tournament. And this is kind of the same way now. A bigger tournament that we've built towards and we're going to end in. And, yeah, that actually that makes a lot of sense from a narrative standpoint. Tournaments are kind of the Karate Kid bread and butter, man. And finally, with Kreese, I had mentioned in a former voicemail, you know, good luck redeeming Kreese with the audience. You know, he he might be redeemed within the language of the of the show.

[01:29:28] But, you know, I don't think the he's going to be redeemed with the audience. You're never going to get past that. Well, one of the ways you do that is you have him sacrifice himself, you know, because I think a lot of us probably are looking at, oh, yeah, you know, he says it. But I don't know that I believe him. He said it a bunch of times and then he and then he just goes right back to his evil ways. You know, so how do you convince the audience? Well, I think that's one way you do it. You have him die protecting Johnny and the sanctity of the tournament.

[01:29:56] And then, you know, as the audience realizes, oh, you know, I guess he was serious this time. Well, that's it for me for this week. We're still all waiting for You're the Best, although I suspect we're going to get it next episode and probably should have always anticipated it would be in the series finale. Jason and I are still waiting to see if Dutch is going to come back. And Nathan and I are still watching for Julie Pierce. Will we get all three of these in the finale?

[01:30:24] I really have no clue. I'm kind of doubting it on the last two, but definitely think we're going to get You're the Best. But I'll wait with bated breath for the next episode to come out to see if you guys thought this episode was as teeth kickingly good as I did. And until then, stay badass. Yeah, I don't think we're going to get Julie or Dutch now, but I do think I hope we'll get that song.

[01:30:49] Yeah, I don't think there's unfortunately any room in this last episode for that. We've just got to wrap it up. So it's unfortunate, but... Can't have everything. Yeah. I like it when they do the... I think you mentioned earlier, too, the future, you know, like, you know, Johnny went on to open a whole series of dojos. You know, Miguel went on to, you know, go to Stanford and became a successful doctor. Robbie became a heroin addict.

[01:31:23] Just kidding. Love you, Robbie. All right. That is our show. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Next episode, Cobra Kai Season 6, Episode 15, Ex-Degenerate recording March 21st, which is, as I'm recording this, about two and a half weeks from now. So we'll be posting it soon after that.

[01:31:52] And if you want to write in or send us a voice message about it, you can find all our contact information at podcastica.com. And while you're there, be sure to check out our other podcasts. A lot of good stuff going on right now. It's not up yet, but Kirk and Jim... Kirk and Jim. Wow. I didn't realize that connection before. They're going to be covering Star Trek. No, I'm just kidding. They're going to be covering Daredevil. Nice.

[01:32:22] So that should be up, I think, Sunday. They're going to be a little bit late, but Daredevil Born Again. I haven't watched the first couple episodes yet, but it's getting good buzz. That's awesome. I want to see more fighting. All right. That is our show. Thanks for listening. And remember, no fucking mercy. Also, drowning's for pussies. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.