We’re here one last time! In Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best,” Tory loses everything once again as Daniel’s moral superiority gets in the way of his friendship with Johnny and jeopardizes Miyagi-Do and a future victory in the Seikai Taikai. Ready?
Here we go!
Promises That Need to Be Fulfilled in Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best”
The beginning of Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best” was one of Tory’s happiest moments. Her mother was recovering, coming back to her. And for the first time, she felt happy, complete, as if she had found her place in the world. Her mother was going to be fine and she had people around her who cared about her, who understood her and whom she called friends, a purpose in life, a man next to her who loved her, and a future perspective.
For the first time, Tory is not angry at the world, she is at peace. That’s why when Kreese comes looking for her, it’s easy for her to reject him. His words can no longer reach her because she feels part of Miyagi-Do. Those people welcomed her with open arms despite everything accepted her and never made a difference with Sam.
Tory meets Keeese and knows that he’s just trying to manipulate her, but he can’t do it anymore, he can’t use her rage against her anymore, she’s at peace. In Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best,” Tory is determined to win the Seikai Taikai with Robby and become captain.
So much so that the two make a promise: they will achieve it together. It’s a promise for the future, they need that to be able to move forward and have perspectives beyond the Seikai Taikai. So the two are determined to fight with everything to achieve it.
On the other hand, Miguel and Sam are also going to go all out to win the captaincy of the Seikai Taikai. In Miguel’s case, he needs to get it to be able to pay for the university he wants to attend in the spring. This inevitably pits both couples against each other once again, although it feels different, they are now on the same side.
At least, until Miguel screws up. He is desperate to be captain of the Seikai Taikai and that leads him to despise Robby. Miguel tells him that since Robby doesn’t have a future as bright as his — something Robby already feels bad about — he should be Captain and, we swear, we wanted to hit him. This is so unfair…
Yes, Robby made bad decisions in his life but he was strong enough to turn around, find a purpose, and fight for it. So the moral superiority that Miguel feels about going to university is unnecessary. That’s why we’re happy that it was Robby who won this fight. Miguel needed to learn a lesson.
Now, is this what Miguel really thinks of Robby? Well, we think it’s mostly desperation speaking but there’s also a grain of truth in it all.
However, these fights soon end up being childish when Tory is faced with the death of her mother, without us knowing the reasons.
“You are a Fighter”
After finding her mother dead in Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best” and being unable to help her, just when she had the most hope for her recovery, Tory needs some time to herself.
That anger returned, that desire to hit something or someone, the desire to scream, to burn the world and watch it burn, returned. Everyone notices her absence and tries to check that everything is okay, especially Robby, but she needs to think, and have a moment for herself, to gain strength to continue fighting.
When she does, she comes back ready to fight, she is a fighter, just like her mother was. Tory promised her mother that she would always be like that, that she would always get up after falling and keep fighting. Tory needs to do this both to try to come to terms with everything that happened and to honor the memory of her mother. But she is not allowed to do so.
As soon as Amanda and Daniel find out what happened, they stop the fight between Tory and Sam. They can barely wrap their heads around everything that has happened and don’t know what to do…they want to hug Tory, and comfort her, but they know Tory wouldn’t appreciate that right now.
The only thing that seems clear is that they must stop this fight because Tory is not in condition and, no matter how much she yells at them that she wants to continue, that she must continue, it doesn’t seem to have any effect.
Use Your Rage in Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best”
In Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best” everyone seems to agree that Tory should not fight, everyone except Johnny. He understands Tory. Johnny knows what it feels like to carry so much anger, so much pain inside that you just need to make your hands bleed by hitting something.
Just that fight, that physical pain helps you forget, to assimilate a horrible situation, to feel like you have control when in other aspects of your life you don’t. And you need to feel that, feel that what happened is not going to overcome you. That’s what Tory is feeling at that moment. She needs to fight with everything she has and prove to herself that she can do it.
But only Johnny understands that feeling. Even Robby, who Tory thought understood her, asks her to stop. That’s when Kreese’s words start to make sense to Tory. For the first time, Tory feels out of place in Miyagi-Do, she feels that she is not going to be allowed to beat the dojo’s princess and that she is not like them.
Tory needed to fight for everything throughout her life, she didn’t get anything that she didn’t have to fight tooth and nail for, including the most basic things. But not them, they always had a life, a secure future, and never had to fight for anything. Robby is the only one who did have to do it, which is why Tory thought he understood her on a deep level… but he proved her wrong.
So in Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best,” Tory feels that she has nothing to do in Miyagi-Do and no one to stay for. Ultimately, Kreese is the only one who shows her that he understands her anger and what she needs. He’s the only one who didn’t make her feel like she was wrong for feeling it. Tory feels like Cobra Kai is where she belongs. Of course, anything of that is true, but is what she’s feeling at the moment.
Different Doesn’t Mean Worse
That said, is there any truth to Tory’s — and Johnny’s — accusation that Amanda and Daniel didn’t want Tory to beat Sam in that fight? Well, let’s start by saying that neither Daniel, Amanda, nor Johnny handled things well.
The confrontation between them only added fuel to the fire and speaking about this issue in public made Tory feel forced to speak in front of everyone about an issue that she wasn’t yet prepared to face or talk about. The correct thing would have been for the three of them to talk with Tory alone.
Once this point has been clarified, we believe that the problem in Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best,” is the inability of Daniel — and Amanda — to understand that there is no single correct way to face anger, pain, trauma, and loss. They may do it by talking, letting themselves be comforted by the people around them, but other people like Tory and Johnny do it their own way, fighting, and hitting something until their hands bleed.
And one way is not better than the other, they are just different ways of dealing with things. Daniel could never understand this —, he thinks that confronting it with violence is something that must be changed, that’s why he always judges Johnny and now, Tory —, so he can’t understand Tory, and what it’s worse, neither he nor Amanda try to do it.
So the only reason Daniel and Amanda stop this fight is because they think that this is not what Tory needs, but that she needs comfort and to talk about it. Did it ever occur to them that, the way Tory was fighting, she would surely have won against Sam? Surely. They are humans, after all, but that wasn’t THE reason to stop the fight.
Johnny’s right on this one, though Amanda and Daniel’s decision wasn’t the right one either, despite their good intentions. They focused on what they thought Tory needed instead of listening to her and doing what she really needed, even if they didn’t agree.
Thinking about the Future in Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best”
This confrontation between Daniel and Johnny is not the first one we see in Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best.” The way Daniel believes that he and his methods are morally superior to Johnny is made more apparent than ever in this episode when he insists that Johnny is out of control when all he does is train with the team.
Daniel even dares to speak freely about what Mr. Miyagi would have approved or not, when the truth is that, as much as it hurts Daniel, he didn’t know him well enough to do so. At this point, it’s shown that it’s Daniel who is out of control because he cannot accept that Mr. Miyagi has a side that he never showed him.
In this way, Daniel makes a mistake by mixing things up and taking advantage of the fact that he is Johnny’s boss at the dealership to get him out of the way for no other reason than a childish tantrum based on his moral superiority. Johnny sees through that and catches him red-handed. So here begins a kind of fight to see who is more stubborn.
They are both wrong here. Daniel has no reason to push Johnny away and treat him like he’s a bad influence, he should treat him as an equal. For his part, Johnny has to understand that, at the dealership, Daniel is his boss and there are things that he cannot do. It’s difficult to draw a line here but they must do it.
As always, in Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best,” Amanda is the one in charge of making sense of both. Telling Johnny what Daniel is going through due to the discovery of Mr. Miyagi’s past makes Johnny understand what Daniel is feeling now and how the ground beneath his feet cracked.
After all, Johnny felt something similar when he realized who Kreese really was, even though the man had been like a father figure to him. For his part, Daniel also begins to open up to Amanda and accept that everything about Mr. Miyagi affected him and made him lose his balance. There is an important part of Mr. Miyagi’s life that he doesn’t know about and Daniel can’t understand why he kept it from him.
Amanda is right on this one. Maybe that question will never have an answer, in life, not everything has one. But it’s time to think about the present because the dojo and the students need them. And they need Johnny and Daniel to be a united front.
Daniel’s To-Do List: Get Mr. Miyagi Off the Pedestal
However, this fragile peace between them ends definitively when the two confront each other over what happened to Tory in Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best.” Understandably, Daniel expected support from Johnny in that situation and, when he didn’t have it, he felt as if Johnny had abandoned him in one of the moments where they should have been most united.
Johnny, for his part, doesn’t know how to make Daniel understand that the fight was Tory’s way of assimilating everything that happened and she needed it. Daniel, again, brings out his moral superiority when he makes it clear that this way of dealing with things is not acceptable for Miyagi-Do. And that is real nonsense.
It’s time for Daniel to stop this attitude, get his head out of his ass and understand that his way of dealing with everything is not the only one that exists nor is it the best in the world. So Johnny is as sick as we are of hearing about Mr. Miyagi’s morals and his Miyagi-Do philosophy as if he were an angel fallen from heaven when the reality is that he was human, like everyone, and he made mistakes.
Johnny is right in this moment of Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best.” We give him a standing ovation because he made all the points together. Daniel, to preserve the teachings of Mr. Miyagi and Miyagi-Do, thinks that he’s morally superior to Johnny, Tory, and everyone else who faces things differently than how Mr. Miyagi taught him. And that has to end.
Daniel has to understand, as we mentioned in the review of episode 1, that different doesn’t mean worse. Furthermore, Daniel has Mr. Miyagi on a pedestal from which he must remove him, the man was human, and for the love of God, Daniel must stop glorifying him.
However, that is a path that Daniel doesn’t seem willing to walk at the moment. It’s funny that he criticizes how others allow themselves to be carried away by violence and now he’s the one doing it by punching Johnny just because he didn’t like hearing the truth. Is this the end for them? We don’t think so but it’s Daniel who must take the first step.
Other Stuff in Cobra Kai 6×05 “Best of the Best”
- Robby managed to win the fight with Miguel when he saw Tory, remembering the promise they both made. We’re sobbing!
- Robby’s face when he hears Tory’s voice crack as she talks about her mother’s death and what she would want…
- Robby is captain of the Seikai Taikai!! We’re celebrating!
- How proud Johnny looks of his son… and Robby’s huge smile, he is proud of himself and happy to see that his father is proud of him. How far we come with these two…
- Sam is the captain. She is a badass but we feel that Tory would have won that fight and deserved the position.
- Mr. Miyagi was a captain in the Seikai Taikai, what??!!
- We can’t help but think that Tory started this season having everything she ever dreamed of a purpose, a feeling that she’s part of something, that she fits in, friends, a man who loves her by her side, people around her who care about her, and her mother getting better. But she ended this batch of episodes losing everything. She doesn’t deserve it…
- It hurts to see Tory again at Kreese’s side, but we understand why she’s there.
- Robby’s face when he sees Tory with Cobra Kai team…
- Daniel only trained two of the captain candidates and Johnny trained all four, without making distinctions. Just saying…
- We can’t believe we’re seeing a new breakup between Daniel and Johnny…
- We think that Daniel is sorry for his attitude — as he should be. Now the ball is in his court, he needs to apologize to Johnny and regain his balance.
- We need Part 2 NOW.
We finish with Cobra Kai season 6 Part 1 reviews here. Thanks for reading and see you again in Part 2!
Cobra Kai season 6 Part 1 is now streaming on Netflix.
