Cobra Kai

Snakes on a plane

Season 6

Section 8

Editor’s Rating

4 stars

****

Photo: COURTESY OF NETFLIX

Something held me back from really loving the first two episodes of this set of five; Barcelona should be a fun change of scenery, and it is, but there has been something a little professional about these opening events in Sekai Taikai and about these returns to old character patterns. The show has felt a tad less joyous than it does at its best.

That changed for me with “Snakes on a Plane,” the exact midpoint of this 15-episode sixth season. It’s kind of a surprise for the least Barcelona-centric episode of the bunch, and for one that has a prominent Anthony LaRusso subplot. But I felt a lot of genuine joy watching this one – both that big bombshell performance at the end and things leading up to it.

It’s an impressive feat considering a relative lack of karate and the brief dismal turnaround with Carmen’s health. When Johnny calls Amanda from the plane, she reports that Carmen is still unconscious and that they are monitoring her bleeding. Otherwise, we’re not privy to what’s going on and if she’ll be okay. Now I thought she was going to make it out of this one, just to kill off Carmen this deep into the show would really throw off the remaining episodes. But the story works because while we know that she will probably be okay, and we know it’s safe to enjoy the flight for all the comedic possibilities, Johnny and Miguel have no such guarantees.

Pretty much every time Miguel feels hurt or neglected by Johnny, the two of them get back together, that’s guaranteed to work on me. They are the core, original sensei-student relationship of the show, the new Mr. Miyagi and Daniel, and in some ways they’re an even more important couple than Johnny and Daniel. Often, the distance between them becomes just because they are busy with their own things – as Johnny explains to Miguel later in the episode, Robby needs more support than him right now, and feels directionless without any particular university prospects. But as he touchingly tells Miguel, “You are also my son.” He admits he’s worried about losing Carmen, that he knows it’s false comfort to pretend he knows everything will be fine.

The rich first grade asshole is a pretty cartoony villain for the episode, but it’s fun to see Miguel be the one to knock him out rather than Johnny. And it’s the first of several W’s for these two, the biggest being the news that Carmen and the baby are doing just fine! (That bloody bed sheet was kind of scary for a moment, but I thought it was misdirection.) She needed an emergency cerclage, but now she’s back on bed rest for a few weeks, so there’s nothing else to do. She even encourages them to fly back to Spain and win the Sekai Taikai.

I think I would believe I could win a world karate tournament if Carmen told me I could, but her encouragement may interfere with the wishes of the new fighter drafted to compete for Miyagi-Do: Kenny. Johnny asked Amanda to get Kenny on a plane to Spain to replace Miguel, not knowing they were going back the same day. It’s pretty smart to put Kenny back at this point, and I’m relieved it doesn’t mean Miguel will actually be absent. There is an interesting possibility of conflict coming into the coming episodes: With a limited number of slots, who actually will join the competition?

Getting Kenny to agree is no easy task. He’s still convinced that Anthony was the one who drugged him with laxatives and led to the memeification of “Shit Butt,” a nickname that really doesn’t roll off the tongue very well. (Then again, Kenny called Anthony “LaPusso.”) Amanda makes Anthony apologize to Kenny for the bullying, but he’s overly defensive about the laxative accusations, and the two inevitably fall out. (Amanda: “Damn karate.”) Ever the peacekeeper, Amanda shuts them up by sharing the news about Carmen, a powerful reminder that their problems are small potatoes. It is their duty to move past this so that Kenny can feel safe at Miyagi-Do and come through to his friends in Barcelona.

It does not stop the war immediately. But Anthony’s more serious apology does, along with his over-the-top gesture of voluntarily evening the score when it comes to pants. Devon’s guilty call admitting it all seals the deal. Kenny and Anthony may not be besties right away, but there is no longer any bad blood.

But when a feud ends, the teenage drama in Barcelona reaches a fever pitch. At Chozen’s encouragement (and against Daniels), the kids “hit the town hard” to decompress tonight, including a tapas bar where Robby, Tory, Kwon and Zara get locked in a four-way game. Robby doesn’t normally drink, but the breakup and his recent karate performances have left him in a dark place, ordering double rum-and-cokes while jealously watching Kwon’s awkward flirting and thinking about how little the breakup has affected Tory—either personally or in karate, which tend to have a direct correlation.

Robby ends up spending the night with Zara, who seems set on personally screwing Tory, either out of some Kreese-esque attempt to get under her enemy’s skin or out of some pathological need to be the prettiest and most popular girl in the room. The next morning, Tory happens to see the two kiss briefly outside Zara’s door, which should raise the stakes for the next event.

Everyone gets cozy with people they shouldn’t be that night, including Demetri, who accepts a dance with a girl who is not his girlfriend Yasmine. Eli’s FaceTime with his own girlfriend Moon seems really intended to bug Demetri, even if he didn’t know Yasmine was in the room with her at the time, but it puts the two friends on even worse ground than before.

And Sam spends some time with Axel, mentioning that she saw Sensei Wolf hurt him. He is firmly focused on fighting and seems shy about anything else, although he does try to give her a kiss after an interrupted fight with Kwon and some of his regular cronies. I can’t really tell where this story is going; Is Sam starting to realize that she might want something other than the life she dreamed of for herself and Miguel?

All of this is solid and raises some exciting wrinkles for the rest of the season. But I have to say that my absolute favorite part of the episode is Chozen and Kim Da-Eun’s subplot, during which they keep running into each other while searching for their students. In the beach district, they run into each other again and eventually track the kids to the tapas bar where they were last seen. Both expected to find the kids fighting and leaving a wrecked bar in their wake – after all, there are historical precedents. But it turns out they were worried about nothing, as far as they know.

Kim Da-Eun has always been a solid secondary antagonist, but I also never thought of her as complex in the same way as Kreese or Silver. But it’s refreshing to start seeing her grow apart from Kreese and disapprove of his off-battlefield tactics. The episode leads us to believe that Kreese kidnapped Daniel without her knowledge, but following Dennis to a hotel leads to the “fuck yeah”-worthy final reveal: It was Terry Silver who was behind the kidnapping all along, and he was probably working with Sensei Wolf for to take out Miyagi-Do and lift the Iron Dragons to victory.

It’s a great moment, especially because it comes early enough that it’s actually surprising (as opposed to a cliffhanger in episode ten, which is what I expected). And yet, Chozen and Kim Da-Eun’s make-out session (and subsequent off-screen sex on the beach) has to be my favorite moment. There’s a real energy to their sparring throughout the episode; in a series like this you’d expect at least a couple of fight-turns-to-make-out moments, but I think this has to be the first actual instance, perhaps because male characters rarely fight female characters (and the is next to no queer characters).

Outside of the satisfaction of seeing Chozen get his groove back after Towel Man ruined his mojo, I love seeing Kim Da-Eun in this new mode. Alicia Hannah-Kim has never been given the chance to play comedy on this show, so it’s a delight to see her flex her muscles here. (The moment she shakes sand out of her sleeves and hair the next morning is a highlight.) It’s going to be hard for the character to redeem herself at this point, given how she’s hurt her students, but her growing rift with other villains is another variable to keep an eye on. I didn’t expect enemies-to-lovers to enter Cobra Kaibut if that’s where this season goes, I’m here for it.

• “Why does the plane do this bendy thing?” “You mean following the curvature of the earth?”

• “Must walk in. Looking for teenagers.” “I heard it before.”