Now You're Gonna Pay
Directed by Lin Oeding
Bobby (of the OG Cobra Kai gang) is giving a sermon at his church when a drunken Johnny barges in, making a scene in front of all the parishioners. After briefly praying for forgiveness, Bobby incapacitates Johnny with a leg sweep. After the sermon, the two discuss Johnny's trouble with Robby, and Bobby offers to help Johnny reconnect with Robby, as the detention center will admit him if he's accompanied by a clergyman.
Robby's stint in juvenile detention is off to a rough start, as he has become the target of a trio of thugs led by a larger inmate named Shawn, who gang up and beat him despite his Miyagi-Do skills. Daniel keeps calling Robby, but he refuses to talk to his former mentor.
Daniel, for his part, feels incredibly guilty for Robby's incarceration, even as Amanda reassures him that Robby's sentence would have been much worse had Daniel not intervened. She is confident that Robby will come around, as she reluctantly admits that Louie is now a decent salesman.
Due to the backlash from the school brawl (and Miyagi-Do's part in it), the dealership is facing sharply decreased sales, and Amanda has been forced to remove all the karate-themed gimmicks from their marketing. Tom Cole approaches Daniel and Amanda to inquire about buying the struggling dealership, but the LaRussos refuse, as both Cole's offer and his attitude are insulting. Anoush, who now works for Cole, is less than happy working for him, as his boss cannot be bothered to remember his name. He reveals to Louie that Cole has made a secret arrangement with Daniel's Japanese distributor Dayona to cut off the dealership.
Sam visits Miguel in the hospital, and Miguel confides in her his fear about his upcoming surgery, both that it might not work and that it will leave his family in severe debt. After noticing Sam's injuries, Miguel talks to her about Tory, telling her that Tory has experienced a rough life, but Sam remains unsympathetic. Before leaving, Sam gives Miguel an octopus-themed greeting card and tearfully apologizes to him, only to be interrupted by Hawk, who exchanges harsh words with her as she leaves.
The school, spearheaded by Miyagi-Do, sponsors a car wash to raise money for Miguel's surgery, but Hawk and a couple other Cobra Kai students beat up Nathaniel and steal the car wash money, intending to donate it in their dojo's name.
Johnny also makes attempts to raise money for Miguel, ranging from finding a new job to pawning his belongings to soliciting his stepdad Sid, but his only successful effort is stealing a modern art sculpture from Sid, which he then sells. This enables him to make a generous donation to Miguel's surgery, earning him the gratitude of Carmen and Rosa. Rosa then asks Johnny to stay and pray for Miguel with her, and he reluctantly accepts, even though this causes Johnny to miss his appointment to visit Robby at the detention center, furthering the rift between the two.
Cole continues to pressure Daniel to sell, as the latter now knows he's facing inevitable bankruptcy without Doyona's support. Daniel returns Cole's contract offer with a middle finger drawn on it, revealing not only that he has a plan to save his business, but has rehired Anoush to his team.
Provoked by Cobra Kai's stunt and Nathaniel's subsequent beating, Sam secretly returns to the Miyagi-Do dojo with the rest of Daniel's students, having decided to keep training them — with or without Daniel's approval.
Daniel enacts the first phase of his plan to save his dealership — boarding a plane to visit Dayona International's headquarters in Tokyo, Japan.
Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: When Tom Cole flips to the page of the contract where Daniel and Amanda drew a middle finger, the normally stoic Anoush visibly resists the urge to giggle at it.
- Apologetic Attacker: Bobby prays to God for forgiveness before he sweeps a drunken Johnny."Forgive me, Father."
- Badass Preacher: Though he may have to pray for forgiveness first, Bobby is well-equipped to shut down a drunken Johnny when he belligerently interrupts a sermon.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- This happens In-Universe with the car wash scene, when one group of guys spot the wet, scantily-clad cheerleaders and instantly request a car wash. A moment later, they're unpleasantly surprised when the portly (and shirtless) Chris steps up to wash their car, and Nathaniel makes off with their payment before they can object.
- While Johnny is delivering his donation for Miguel's surgery, the audience is told that Miguel's surgeon just arrived from the airport. When Carmen talks to her, we see that the surgeon (shown from the back) is a woman with long blonde hair. All this leads the audience to believe that this could be Ali (especially as season 1 established that Ali is a pediatric surgeon), but when she turns around, the surgeon is revealed to be a complete stranger.
- The Bus Came Back: The pawn shop guy makes his first appearance since Season 1, and Anoush and Bobby both make their reappearances.
- Call-Back:
- The episode begins with Bobby's sermon about forgiveness. The last time Bobby appeared, Johnny asked him about the Bible and forgiveness in regards to Kreese.
- Sam gives Miguel an octopus-themed "get well" card, recalling that Senor Octopus is the mascot of their former relationship.
- Johnny still does not know the proper way to pronounce "hashtag".
- Callousness Towards Emergency: Despite his contempt towards his stepfather, Johnny turns to him for help to fund Miguel's surgery. Sid refuses and tells off his stepson.
- Compressed Hair: Somehow, Hawk can fit his big mohawk in a helmet.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: Averted. Robby might be well trained in Miyagi-Do karate, but he proves to be no match for the more aggressive trio of inmates who gang up on him.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: It's not enough that Daniel's dealership is naturally suffering due to his connection with the school brawl. Tom Cole has to kick him while he's down by secretly convincing Daniel's distributor Dayona to cut ties with his dealership, all in a bid to run Daniel out of business entirely.
- Distracted by the Sexy: When Johnny is drunkenly disrupting Bobby's sermon, he stops for a moment to wink at a blonde woman sitting next to the aisle.
- Face–Heel Revolving Door: Anoush defected to Tom Cole's dealership last season, but finds himself hating the environment and Cole's underhanded business practices. He ends up defecting back to LaRusso because Daniel at least remembers his name, while also giving them vital information about Cole trying to steal away exclusivity rights with Dayona Motors.
- Fanservice Car Wash: Moon convinced the cheerleaders to help with a car wash to raise funds for Miguel's medical costs, as cute girls in bikinis attract more customers than a shirtless, heavyset Chris.
- Flipping the Bird: After all of Tom Cole's abrasive banter, Daniel can't just say "no" to his final offer to buy the dealership. Only a drawing of a middle finger right on the contract will suffice.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: One of the job advertisement Johnny circled in the newspaper asks for "female DANCERS 18-30 yrs old" and Johnny has put a question mark on it.
- Get Out!:
- The pawn shop owner declines Johnny's offer to sell a '93 Dodge Caravan to him and orders him out of the store.Pawn shop owner: Let's just... take a look at the Kelley Blue Book.
Johnny: All right. It's got a tape deck. Grayish cloth interior.
Pawn shop owner: Cloth interior? Yeah. That's... interesting.
Johnny: What does it say?
Pawn shop owner: It says, "Get the hell outta my shop." - Sid refuses to help his stepson fund Miguel's surgery and tells him off.
- The pawn shop owner declines Johnny's offer to sell a '93 Dodge Caravan to him and orders him out of the store.
- Handwave: Bobby tells Johnny that his church can donate money to help pay for Miguel's surgery, but the amount won't cover the full cost because they're still paying off their new roof.
- Hopeless with Tech: Among the things Johnny tries to pawn at the pawn shop is his used laptop because the battery ran out of juice. Apparently he didn't know you are able to charge the battery, thinking either you replace the battery or wireless meant doesn't need to be plugged in.
- Jerkass Has a Point: The pawn shop guy is as much of a snarky jerkass as he was in previous seasons, but this time when he chastises Johnny for trying to sell his box of crap, he bitingly suggests that Johnny should find someone who has valuable things. While the guy didn't exactly tell Johnny to steal, the suggestion turns out to be exactly what Johnny needed to do, as a few scenes later, he ends up swiping one of Sid's sculptures, which he can (and does) sell for the money he needed in the first place.
- Kick the Dog:
- Not only does Tom Cole repeatedly make cracks about the brawl and Miguel's injury, but he has also taken advantage of LaRusso Auto Group's recent business struggles to secretly convince Dayona to void their contract with LaRusso and sign exclusively with him.
- Cobra Kai stealing the car wash proceeds is an act of incredibly petty cruelty, even without pulverizing Nathaniel while they were at it. Daniel's students could have chosen to leave Miguel to rot (as he was Cobra Kai's champion), but instead went out of their way to make amends to the "enemy". And this was the Miyagi-Do students' own decision, as Daniel never so much as suggested (much less put them up to) doing this. In the end, the car wash proves that the Miyagi-Do teachings about forgiveness are still taken seriously. Yet Cobra Kai couldn't handle just letting Miyagi-Do have this — they had to strike out of spite, even though they could have done nothing and let the money go to Miguel all the same. Both Miguel and Johnny would have been far from happy if they had learned about the theft, with the former possibly even rejecting the money.
- Hawk antagonizing Sam for visiting Miguel at the hospital was also a dick move, considering that she wasn't responsible for Robby's actions and just wanted to help.
- Master of the Mixed Message: Despite Sam's attempt to appear only interested in trying to be friends with Miguel, she deliberately chooses an octopus-themed card invoking their first date as a couple, something clearly meant to have romantic undertones.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Tom Cole is such a jackass that Anoush straight up blabs to Louie about Cole's underhanded scheme with Dayona. A few scenes later, he returns to his old job with Daniel without bothering to give notice to Cole until the latter knows that Anoush betrayed him.Anoush: Oh! I forgot to tell you, Daniel offered me my job back. And since he knows my name and isn't a complete doucheclown, I accepted.
- Moment Killer: Sam and Miguel have a tender moment when she visits him at the hospital to give him a get well card, only for it to be ruined when Hawk arrives for his own visit.
- Never My Fault: Hawk considers Sam complicit in Miguel's injuries by her association with Robby, but still refuses to acknowledge his own role in escalating the school brawl out of control.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
- Robby gets into a fight with three other inmates, which ends with them leaving him writhing on the floor.
- Nathaniel gets one offscreen when Cobra Kai steals the money from Miyagi-Do's car wash charity. When he shows up at Sam's house, his glasses are gone, his shirt is torn up, and he has blood and bruises all over.
- N-Word Privileges: When Anoush says "goombah" while chatting outside the meeting with Louie, Louie takes offense and tells him that it's "our word". Anoush is more than a little skeptical of this.
- Oh, Crap!: Anoush's reaction after he's switched back to Team LaRusso, only for it to be revealed that while Daniel does have a plan to save his business, it isn't a sure thing.
- Once a Season: Cobra Kai is allotted one F-word per season, and Nathaniel has claimed F-word #3.
- Precision F-Strike:
- The Miyagi-Do students tell Sam that Cobra Kai stole the fundraiser money for Miguel. Then Nathaniel, beaten and bloody, adds that they "kicked the fucking shit" out of him.
- The normally polite and mild Anoush calls Tom Cole a "doucheclown" with an utterly straight face.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Stealing is wrong, especially in the form of straight up carrying someone's possessions out of their house in broad daylight, but show of hands: did anyone feel sorry for Sid after Johnny swiped that silly modern art sculpture? Didn't think so.
- Running Gag: Bobby has to again remind Johnny repeatedly that he’s a preacher, NOT a priest.
- Saying Too Much: Johnny lets slip about his past offenses which lead to arrests, and is subsequently turned down by his prospective employer on grounds of mental instability.Johnny: Most recently, I was arrested for public intoxication. Assault and battery. And, uh... "willful destruction of property," I think they said. Not necessarily in that order. And a year ago, I was arrested for assaulting a minor.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: As a "sex-positive feminist", Moon has no reservations about getting the cheerleaders out to help attract customers for Miyagi-Do's car wash.
- Stealing the Credit: Hawk and his gang confront and rough up Nathaniel, and swipe the fundraiser money from him which they plan to donate under Cobra Kai's name.
- Take a Third Option:
- After considering Cole's offer of buying out the entirety of the LaRusso Auto Group, Daniel presents to him a doodle of a middle finger, and reveals that he offered Anoush his old job back and has a plan to save his dealership.
- How Johnny resolved the issue of getting Miguel's surgery money from Sid is a more subtle one. Straight up asking Sid for the money predictably fails, so Johnny simply pilfers one of Sid's modern art sculptures to pawn. It wasn't a surprise for some fans, considering how much of a dick Sid is.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Defied; Johnny threatens to reveal Sid's predatory past if he doesn't help Miguel. Sid doesn't care one bit as he doesn't have a good reputation to destroy.Johnny: I'd hate for that little incident with your secretary to get out to the public. Y'know, start one of those "hash brown MeToo" things.
Sid: I didn't get where I am because I cared about my reputation. - Wax On, Wax Off: Sam is shown directing the other students to use the repetitive motions of the Miyagi-Do teaching when washing cars.
