The fourth season of Cobra Kai brings together Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso as they aim to defeat John Kreese’s dojo in the upcoming All Valley Karate tournament and end his reign as a sensei.
Summary
To overcome John Kreese (Martin Kove) and his cobra kai dojo in the upcoming All Valley tournament, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) decide to work together and teach their students together. Kreese also decides to recruit some help and contacts his old war buddy, Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith).
Robbie (Tanner Buchanan) crashes at the cobra kai dojo for a few days where Kreese and Tory (Peyton List) try to convince him to join them but he remains reluctant. Johnny and Daniel decide to learn each other styles themselves to have a better understanding between them.
Kenny (Dallas Young) joins in the middle of the school year as the new kid but he’s bullied by Anthony LaRusso (Griffin Santopietro) and his friends from the first day. He tells his older brother who is in juvenile detention who points him towards Robbie for help.
Tory is trying to support her family with multiple jobs and Amanda (Courtney Henggeler) visits her at work one day to insist that she stay away from her daughter, Sam (Mary Mouser). Tory loses her cool and her job in the process, and Amanda gets a visit from Kreese later on who tells her to back off from Tory because she’s got a rough life.
Once they decide to work together, Johnny takes the students of Miyagi-do to learn some more offensive techniques while Daniel teaches Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) and the rest of eagle fang the ways of Miyagi-do. After some initial teething problems, the students eventually get the hang of it.
Robbie takes Kenny under his wing and teaches him and the rest of the Cobra Kai recruits the ways of Miyagi-do so that they know all their opponents moves to give them an upper hand. Terry Silver comes back and decides to hold back on the pattern of violence that has been running so far.
He and Kreese visit Daniel and Johnny to offer a temporary moratorium on all fighting until the tournament. Silver wants to focus on winning the tournament and expanding cobra kai rather than seek out revenge. Kreese gets uneasy with Silver’s approach but goes along with it.
With Silver joining the fray, Daniel wants to take full charge of all the students but Johnny doesn’t agree to that. They both get drunk and decide to fight to decide who gets to take the lead. When the fight ends in a draw, they decide to split back up and go their separate ways.
The All-Valley tournament committee decides to make some changes to the tournament style, introducing a skills competition as well splitting the men and women into two divisions. While cobra kai is glad to hear this news, Miyagi-do and eagle fang consider it a minor setback due to their split.
Johnny and Miguel set out to recruit some girls to their team so that they can compete in the women’s division while Hawk joins Miyagi-do to strengthen their men’s group.
Kenny still has to deal with Anthony and his friends who constantly terrorize him. Daniel tries to bring in Anthony and teach him the ways of Miyagi-do but Anthony lacks the patience or discipline to learn it all. He lies about his role in the issues with Kenny and eventually pays the price.
Kenny picks a fight with them and intentionally gets caught. With strong evidence, the school realise that Anthony and his friends were the aggressors and suspend them. Anthony feels the full wrath of his parents who wonder why he went down this path in the first place.
Prom comes around and Tory attends with Robbie as her date. They get into yet another scuffle with Miguel and Sam at the after-party and this leaves things between Miguel and Sam a little shaky because they got caught up in their rivalry when all they wanted was to have a simple fun night for themselves.
Miguel comes back home to find Johnny all drunk and beaten up, He puts him in bed when Johnny decides to bear his feelings to Miguel. Miguel ultimately realises that in his drunken haze, Johnny actually thinks he’s talking to Robbie and this ends up hurting Miguel.
The day of the tournament arrives with all the dojos coming together to compete for the overall championship and for Kreese, LaRusso and Lawrence to find out the outcome of their bet.
Cobra kai and Miyagi-do take an early lead in the points while eagle fang drops down in the standings. With the qualification rounds beginning the early favourites all progress to the later rounds, with Robbie, Miguel and Sam winning their matches.
Eventually Sam and Tory make it to the finals of the women’s division to set up a deciding grudge match.
It comes down to the men’s semi-finals where Robbie faces Demetri and Miguel faces Hawk. Demetri puts on a good fight but Robbie goes through. During Hawk’s fight with Miguel, Miguel ends up hurting his back bringing the match to a halt.
If you have any more questions regarding the end, read on below.
Cobra Kai season 4 summary and ending explained:
Spread your wings and fly
Miguel ends up with a muscle pull and the doctor advises him to go by his gut when it comes to carrying on. Johnny gets caught up in the occasion and gives him a pep talk about going out there to prove he’s the best, but with so much going on in his mind Miguel decides he’s just not in it anymore.
He does not come out again for his semi-final, sending Hawk to the final via forfeit. Hawk and Robbie face off in the final where Robbie dominates early on and grabs the first point. Hawk looks for advice and Daniel tells him to lean into his more offensive roots. This helps him win the next point.
There’s an intense back and forth but no one comes out on top as the final reach its 3-minute time limit and moves onto sudden death. Silver tells Robbie to really use his anger and go all out while Daniel tells Hawk to just go out and give it his best.
Hawk ends up scoring the winning point and succeeding Miguel as the next All Valley Men’s Champion.
The ladies’ time to shine
Amanda meets with Tory before the final and lets her know that she’s glad she is getting the help that she needed. Tory says that she owes Amanda and will pay her back any way she can to which Amanda replies asking Tory to just stay within the rules and not resort to any dirty tactics while fighting Sam.
Daniel makes peace with Johnny and asks him to stand in Sam’s corner for the final. Johnny agrees to bury the hatchet and wishes Sam the best. Sam starts off aggressive and takes an early lead in the match. Tory pulls it back and brings the scores level when during a routine move, Tory accidentally elbows Sam in the eye and gets a warning.
Silver tells Tory to attack the injured eye but Kreese tells Tory to just fight her own way and win with honour. Tory wins the next point and immediately checks on Sam but is mobbed by her celebrating teammates as she’s handed her trophy.
Sam wonders out loud to her dad about where they went wrong and then runs off in sadness with Daniel unable to hold in his tears as well.
Going down different paths
The Cobra Kai students are heading to celebrate when Tory overhears a conversation between Silver and the match referee who he had bribed. Silver also tells the crowd after the final about their plans to expand to cobra kai with the establishment of multiple dojos.
Miguel disappears after his semi-final and Johnny blames himself. He leaves a letter explaining how he doesn’t feel like he has balance and is headed to Mexico to find his birth father to achieve that. Johnny promises to go after him to make sure he’s safe.
Before that Johnny runs into Robbie who tells him that he was wrong about joining Cobra Kai and feels like he screwed up everything including his tutelage of Kenny. Johnny tells him that it will all work out and that he’ll be there by his side till the end.
Silver plays his own games and frames John Kreese for a crime that he committed and takes sole control of the dojo while Kreese heads to prison.
Daniel calls in Chozen to help him fight back the oncoming threat of Cobra Kai because he cannot just give up being a sensei. The season ends with the two of them paying their respects to Mr Miyagi’s grave.