Cobra Kai Recap: Carmen Diaz Got Married

In many ways, Cobra Kai is a show built on character pairings: friendships, relationships, rivalries, and mentorships, with a ton of overlap among all four. And for “Rattled,” presumably the final episode before we return to the Sekai Taikai, the focus is squarely on how far those various core dynamics have come.

Let’s start with the obvious: Johnny and Carmen, who tie the knot and have a baby in this episode. It’s all a bit rushed, honestly, but that’s okay. These moments have been on the final-season checklist for a while, so it makes sense to deal with them now. Rosa’s impatience is the impetus for Johnny’s frantic proposal planning; she thinks Carmen’s baby will be born into a “house of sin” if they’re not married first. However, this episode is less about Christian faith than Johnny’s perfectionism when it comes to the big moment.

He pays a visit to his old pastor friend Bobby, the gentler bully from the original Karate Kid who appeared in a couple of episodes back in seasons two and three. It’s nice to see the character (and actor Ron Thomas) return once more in this last stretch, and his wisdom is actually insightful: Johnny needs to stop “sleeping on his happiness” and take the leap without waiting for the ideal circumstances. He may never be truly happy if he’s still fixated on the sheer perfection of that day he won the All-Valley in 1983.

So, he takes that leap and proposes to Carmen right there in her hospital room while she has five-minutes-apart contractions — then marries her, with Bobby as the pastor and Rosa, Miguel, Robby, Daniel, Amanda, and Chozen as the audience. It’s a sweet ending to the episode, especially when everyone gets to meet baby Laura, named after Johnny’s mom.

During Bobby’s speech about sticking together through challenges foreseeable and unforeseeable, the episode cuts to show Eli and Demetri, then Sam and Tory. It’s a funny equivalence to draw, but those pairings are love stories in their own way, with all their ups and downs. The Binary Bros. have had a particularly angsty season, but now their friendship is secure and they’re already making plans to visit each other’s campus while Eli is at Caltech and Demetri is at MIT.

They’re also teaming up on a wildly unbelievable AI module that can help Robby prepare to fight Axel. FIGHT, which stands for Fully Integrated Generative Haptic Technology, is a karate training program that allows Robby to pop on some VR goggles and see a realistic-looking Axel before his very eyes — while feeding Miguel the karate moves Axel would actually choose, based on all the uploaded footage of Axel’s fights. It also somehow manages to churn out a somewhat reliable percentage for the likelihood of Robby beating his opponent.

After some time using FIGHT, though, Robby’s odds just keep plummeting, and he’s back to angst mode. Thank God for Miguel, who comes in with a very Johnny-esque pep talk, telling him that “numbers are for pussies” and reminding him how hard he worked to get to this point. As during the similar moment when Miguel pumped him up in Barcelona, the moment is earned because of the years of tension these two have been through.

The same goes for the scenes of Sam and Tory training together in this episode: Some of this feels familiar, but it’s gratifying to see so much unforced warmth between them. Breaking into the All Valley arena, they chat comfortably about how they used to despise each other, and both agree that it feels right to be fighting together again. Sam even manages to convince Tory to compete in the Sekai Taikai after all, which I really respect — she’s sacrificing a guaranteed spot in the finals by actively encouraging her ex-archnemesis and current biggest threat to fight. Sam used to be arguably the most annoying character on Cobra Kai, but she’s grown up a lot, and it’s rewarding to see her continue her upward trajectory. That extends to her postgrad plans: She applied to a yearlong program in Okinawa, a fitting way for the younger generation to carry on the Miyagi legacy.

Tory wasn’t in the midseason premiere, so it’s also good to hear her perspective here. Whenever she gets caught up in karate, it ends up ruining her friendships and relationships, which is why she’s planning to opt out entirely. But maybe the real issue is her habit of shutting everyone out, which is what she did by retreating to Cobra Kai after her mom’s death. Now, she’s in a place to rebuild those friendships without giving up what she loves.

The last main duo of “Rattled” is Chozen and Winnie Taylor (Elizabeth Berkley!), the mother of Eli’s girlfriend, Moon. Daniel and Amanda set the two of them up during a wine tasting in Ojai, hoping to avert another drunken meltdown from a still-heartbroken Chozen. (Kumiko finally got back to him with a letter, only to confirm that her heart lies somewhere else.) But he’s not in the mood to give someone else a chance. He’s snotty to Winnie about her Reiki treatments and tarot-card readings, only explaining the context for his emo attitude when she confronts him about it.

Chozen and Winnie do eventually connect when they discover a mutual love of Storage Wars and trash reality TV, but I appreciate that the dynamic remains platonic. Her tarot reading warns Chozen that one or more people he knows will die very soon (someone other than just Silver?), but that he may have a love match in his future. It makes him think of Kim Da-Eun, but he always figured the two of them would never work because they’re from completely different worlds. (Never mind the fact that Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai have had plenty of cross-pollination.) Winnie is fully shipping it, though.

I really liked this coupling earlier in the season, so I’m happy to see the show set up a reunion between the two. Chozen has proved to be one of the show’s best additions and biggest sources of comedy, and this episode is the perfect reminder of that as we move into the endgame.

Mr. Miyagi’s Little Trees

• Gunther doesn’t have much of a problem securing the All Valley arena as a venue for the Sekai Taikai, all things considered, and he even kicks someone in the face to settle the master of ceremonies question.

• Fun to watch Daniel and Amanda drown their sorrows with wine as they commiserate over the idea of losing contact with Sam when she moves away.

• The montage of Johnny following the different proposal guidelines is pretty good. There’s no internet how-to guide this guy won’t try.

• I will say that it felt pretty obvious to me that Carmen’s water would break right at that moment.

• The biggest laugh of the episode for me is Chozen’s quote about a saying they have in Okinawa: “Reiki is bullshit.”

• Winnie mentions that James Kennedy and Ally Lewber from Vanderpump Rules got a tarot reading and that they’re still together, but this line is unfortunately timed: The couple broke up just last month after Kennedy was arrested on domestic-violence charges. So I guess that’s a point for Chozen’s “tarot is bullshit” position?