U.I.C.S. ~ Tory Nichols (Season Five Addendum)

*U.I.C.S. stands for: Unnecessarily Intensive Character Study*

(This is an addendum for my previous U.I.C.S. article on Tory Nichols, taking into account the events of Season Five of Cobra Kai.)

The Hardest Sacrifices… (Season Five)

This season starts Tory exactly where we left off with her.

Tory’s just had the best AND worst moments of her entire life, within the same evening. She beat Sam at the All-Valley Tournament to cinch the victory for both the Girls’ Division and the Cobra Kai Dojo as a whole, only to then find out that the referee was bribed by one of her senseis, Terry Silver. Twice during the match Tory should have either not scored a point, or Sam should have (both involving out-of-bounds shenanigans), and thus her entire win is now both in question and tarnished in general.

After all, Tory’s entire driving motivation during Season Four was winning this All-Valley Tournament, so that she could finally feel as if she’s the best at something in life. Winning that trophy isn’t just to have something shiny to display on her wall. It’s also to prove to herself and her issues with self-esteem that there’s something in life that she’s good at and can be proud of. Tory’s a girl whose made a lot of mistakes in her life, and she’s well aware of that fact. The tournament win was supposed to be a springboard to turn her life around with.

And now her victory is gone…and that’s hardly the worst part of it.

Remember, Tory’s extremely close with Sensei John Kreese, as he was the one who took a shine to her from the minute she first joined the dojo. He coached her on all the best techniques and moves, he helped her to channel her near-bottomless anger and resentment towards Sam and Miguel before the Christmas Home Invasion, he scared off her creepy and money-leeching landlord, and he shared close personal stories about his own home life to better relate with her. Kreese has his own laundry list of issues, but being a genuinely decent mentor (encouragement of hate and grudges notwithstanding) to Tory cannot be ignored.

But, in one of the very final scenes of Season Four, Kreese is betrayed by Terry Silver. Having worked together up until this point, Silver has become disillusioned with Kreese and his hypocritical ways, viewing his old war buddy’s ties to Johnny Lawrence and Tory as a weakness. Silver frames Kreese for the near-murder of another Cobra Kai student, Stingray (even though it was Silver himself who brutalized the student after striking a cruel deal with him), and Kreese is hauled off to jail.

This leaves Tory at a dojo without her true sensei, and with the man responsible for cheating and ruining her tournament victory solely in charge.

To put it somewhat lightly, Tory has NEVER handled revenge well. When her anger and resentment is pointed at someone, there’s just about no lengths you can go to to escape her (like starting a school-wide brawl or breaking into her archenemy’s house). This time, though, the rage that’s building inside of her is stronger than it has ever been, because it’s not just her own feelings or pride that’s been slighted. Her trusted sensei is wrongfully in jail, and the moment Tory’s fought for for her entire life has been ripped from her hands.

Because of this, Tory is 100% on the warpath, and that leads to her wanting nothing more than to get revenge on Silver for his role in masterminding this whole mess. To that end, Tory begins visiting Kreese in jail (using the excuse for visitation that she’s his granddaughter). It’s there that she learns about the extent of Silver’s manipulations, and Kreese proposes a plan to take Silver down for good. To do that, however, Kreese needs someone on the inside of Cobra Kai.

See, Silver hasn’t yet figured out that Tory knows about the bribed ref, the cheated victory, and the framing of Kreese. He still believes that she’s as loyal a Cobra Kai soldier as she’s always been, and thus has no reason to expect that the longer she stays in the dojo the more info she can leak to Kreese to keep him in-the-know. The big downside to this plan? The less people know she’s working with Kreese, the better, so she has to keep the secret from her closest allies and her boyfriend, Robby.

For a while, this works. Tory continues to attend classes at Cobra Kai, although she mostly brushes off the praise and compliments she receives from her peers who try to congratulate her for being the All-Valley champ. She even takes some lessons from Chozen Toguchi, Daniel’s friend from Japan who flew in to help take down Cobra Kai. Chozen’s speech about the importance of honor and integrity resonates with Tory, and gives her the courage to confront Silver.

While keeping a tight-lip on her partnership with Kreese and the subterfuge she’s been engaging in, Tory nevertheless flat-out asks Silver why he paid off the ref. The conversation takes place late one evening once everyone else has headed out for the day. Silver, a master manipulator, recognizes that lies and excuses won’t work for Tory’s straight-forward style, so he instead claims that it was a simple insurance policy and that Tory still won the fight against Sam fair and square. He promises her that he understands if she wants to leave, but if she sticks around, he’ll make her the face and the future of Cobra Kai.

Tory agrees, keeping quiet about the bribery and beginning to relish in her champion status amongst her Cobra Kai peers. To an onlooker, it appears that she’s fully accepting the praise and adoration, even if it may be unearned.

What’s the point? You’ll just pay to make me champion again.

Tory, Season Five Episode Two

This, though, isn’t the case. Tory’s merely keeping up the façade of the loyal brainwashed solider. In fact, she’s earned Silver’s trust to such a degree that it’s unlikely he’ll ever expect her of betrayal. She’s pretending to be fully wrapped around his finger, even though she’s actually terrified of the lengths he’d go to to keep her quiet should she try to speak out. After all, this is the man who beat a student nearly to-death just as a ploy to frame Kreese. There’s nothing Silver won’t do to hold onto his power.

So Tory keeps powering on, pretending to be the star student of Cobra Kai, while sliding Kreese more information on the side. He, meanwhile, is also keeping up an obedient and contrite façade at the prison, hoping to be released early for good behavior, where he can then take revenge on Silver using all of Tory’s information. This plan works well for a measure of time…until it all starts crashing down around Tory specifically.

And like a snowball, Tory’s suffering just keeps rolling on and on.

First is the incident at the waterpark. Because there apparently isn’t anything else to do in the Valley during the heat of Summer, both the Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do students end up at the park on the same day. This, invariably, leads to some hot-blooded confrontations and flaring tensions, which Tory tries her level best to keep contained. She’s just trying to enjoy a nice day with Robby, but has to keep getting involved due to her Queen-Cobra status.

It boils over when the two dojos agree to a waterslide race with the loser being forced to leave the park, and Tory’s elected as the participant. She ends up winning, but is yet again metaphorically slapped in the face by the realization that her own Cobra Kai peers popped a hole in the Miyagi-Do tube that led to their side’s loss. With a chanting chorus of “cheater, cheater“, Tory shameful walks off, and a minor fight breaks out before a lifeguard intervenes. The two dojos are barred from the park.

Out in the parking lot, Robby confronts Tory.

Throughout the episode, he’s been trying to reach out to her and appeal to the goodness under her tough, aggressive exterior. He tries multiple times to coax her out of Cobra Kai, as he himself recently left the dojo due to realizing the horror of their violent bullying ways. Tory rebuffs him, gently at first and then a bit more forcefully, and Robby switches tactics to instead get her to see how horrible of an influence the dojo has been on the young student Kenny, who was once a nerdy but earnest kid. Tory again refuses to leave.

It’s a painfully ironic exchange, and one wherein the anguish in Tory’s eyes is easy to see. After all, she wants nothing more than to leave the Cobra Kai dojo, but she can’t. To do so would be to lose any chance of ever getting revenge of Silver, avenge Sensei Kreese, and salvage some amount of pride from her cheated tournament victory. To leave Cobra Kai would be to admit defeat and, in Tory’s mind, remove any chance of finding peace in what happened at the All-Valley.

She’s certainly not being a full altruistic selfless person here, to be clear. Her decision to stay at Cobra Kai, even with her secret goal in mind, is a selfish one. She’s prioritizing revenge over relationships, and even if her loyalty to pseudo-father-figure Kreese is commendable, she’s putting “passion before principle” as Daniel once said. Revenge, even if it feels justified, and even if it brings fleeting satisfaction, is never the right course of action.

Robby, though, doesn’t know a thing about this inner turmoil and personal struggle that Tory is dealing with, and only sees the girl he likes refusing to admit fault and leave the toxic dojo. Prioritizing his new personal growth, Robby breaks up with Tory and heads out, leaving her standing alone in the parking lot.

The next crack in Tory’s delicate glass-house of lies comes from Kreese himself. While reading a newspaper in his prison cell, Kreese finds an article about the testimony that the brutalized student gave in court, which led to Kreese’s wrongful conviction. The student, a man named Raymond Porter who primarily goes by Stingray, is now fabulously wealthy and spoiled by Silver as a means of keeping him contented and quiet.

Kreese gives the newspaper clipping to Tory, who scribbles the word “LIES” across the picture of Stingray. She then slips the clipping into Daniel’s mailbox, per Kreese’s instruction. As the two had hoped, Daniel finds the clipping, realizes what it’s implying, and goes to confront Stingray about the truth of the testimony.

Unfortunately, Silver catches wind and intercepts Daniel, and Daniel is violently brutalized in an attack that crushes his bones and his spirit in equal measure.

Tory, understandably, is distraught at this revelation. Up until now, the only one suffering for her actions has been herself, since she’s having to act like someone she’s not at the dojo and has lost Robby. But now Daniel, an innocent person, has been directly injured because of the clipping she slipped into his mailbox, and though she didn’t do the beating herself, she takes the guilt wholly onto her own shoulders.

And Daniel’s not the only innocent person foisted onto Tory’s shoulders either.

Before the dust has even settled on the guilt from Daniel’s attack, Tory is brought along with Silver and some other Cobra Kai students on his visit to a smaller dojo that he’s about to buy and absorb into the Cobra Kai family. After sealing the deal, Silver (and his new right-hand partner, Kim Da-Eun) command Tory to help train the new students to see if they are worthy of being Cobra Kai elite.

Tory ends up partnered with Devon, who was once a member of Johnny’s now-defunct Eagle Fang dojo. Tory and Devon also came to blows back in the All-Valley tournament semi-finals, with Tory effortlessly dominating the then-newbie. Some bad blood is clearly still present, but that doesn’t stop Tory from legitimately trying to coach Devon on a few new moves and techniques.

The two girls also bond over intimate personal stories about their mothers (Devon’s passed away, and Tory’s has been in deteriorating bed-ridden health for years). Tory isn’t one to share much, so her sharing this close connection with Devon is noteworthy. Neither Miguel nor Robby ever learned much of Tory’s home life while they dated her, and only Kreese had been privy to this information until now. Tory’s been alone for so long that it makes sense she would reach out to a potential friend when possible.

But the deal with Kreese and the truth about Silver still hands over her head like an omnipresent guillotine, and Tory is forced to make a decision. The nicer she is to Devon, the more likely it is that Devon will want to join Cobra Kai, and Tory doesn’t want yet another innocent hopeful student to be turned into a monster thanks to Cobra Kai’s teachings.

I know how you feel. But you have to take all that anger, and you have to put it into your fist.

Tory, Season Five Episode Six

And so, when Sensei Kim pairs Tory and Devon up for a one-on-one training match, Tory does not hold back. With her trademark aggressive brute strength, Tory lands several powerful kicks and blows onto Devon, and aces the practice. Her expression falls when Devon runs out of the dojo on the verge of tears, but she steels herself under the watchful eye of Sensei Kim, knowing she did the right thing in sparing Devon from Cobra Kai.

…except then Devon shows up at the flagship Cobra Kai dojo the very next day, specifically citing Tory’s no-holds-barred expertise as the inspiration for signing up to better herself. With a smug smile, Devon confesses that she’s going to keep training with Tory, and then one day surpass her. It’s clear that Cobra Kai has just earned itself a brand new devoted member, and one with the skill and drive to feed off their merciless and violent teachings.

In her efforts to drive Devon away, Tory’s only laid the seeds for a new monster.

Tory course-corrects in the next episode, but it’s still another one of those painfully ironic situations. Since it’s clear Devon has no intention of leaving the dojo, Tory switches instead to becoming her friend, hoping to help the girl’s skills grow while also keeping her off the path of evil that Cobra Kai teaches. And this decision does begin to bear fruit, with the two working as a good team in a two-on-one teambuilding exercise against Sensei Kim.

With Tory taking on the leader position in the exercise and Devon as the follower, the two girls manage to put up a decent fight against Kim. They’re outmatched, but Tory has an opening when Devon takes a nasty hit. However, Tory opts out of landing a blow on Kim at the cost of Devon, and instead pulls Kim away from her partner (which leads to Kim turning the tables and knocking Tory down too). Devon, however, is grateful and impressed by Tory’s leadership in not sacrificing her for the point. Their bond is solidified…even if it’s a bond that is only really solidifying Devon’s role in Cobra Kai.

But if this season has demonstrated anything, it’s that nothing can go right in Tory’s life for long.

While she’s been at the dojo with Devon, Kreese has been failing to keep up his act of a “good soldier” in prison, and the inmate counselor sees right through his paltry attempts at an early release. He’s doing some good introspection, but it’s not getting him closer to being out. Daniel and Johnny throw another wrench in the plan by appealing to Kreese for advice, and then subverting his expectations by not holding up their end of the bargain (arguably some karmic payback for enduring years of abuse from Kreese).

As a result, Kreese’s motivation is at an all-time low, and the prospects of him leaving prison soon are looking bleak. With his and Tory’s entire plan of getting revenge on Silver hinging upon Kreese’s release from prison, it’s becoming clearer that the plan is doomed to fail.

So, Kreese announces the end of their secretive partnership during Tory’s next visitation. He tells her that she needn’t concern herself with him anymore, and that she should just focus on what she thinks is best for her life. It’s similar to the advice he gave to encourage her back during the All-Valley Tournament. Kreese, in his mind, is letting Tory down easy by trying to motivate her to go out and follow her own path instead of devoting time to his own doomed attempt at forcing an early release.

The trouble is, Kreese isn’t able to see the deal from Tory’s perspective, and is shocked when Tory isn’t just disappointed that the plan is over, but is FURIOUS.

While prison is no walk in the park, Tory has been the one actively making sacrifices to keep this partnership alive. She’s the one who is still attending a dojo she dislikes and taking lessons from a sensei she’s afraid of. Tory is the one who is unwittingly coaching Devon into becoming a violent aggressor, and Tory is the one who endured breaking up with Robby. She did all of this out of loyalty towards her bond with Kreese, and the glimmering future of getting revenge on Silver.

Screw this. This is what I get, for putting my trust in anyone. In the end, I’m always the one picking up the pieces.

Tory, Season Five Episode Eight

Kreese thinks he’s doing Tory a kindness by cutting her loose, but in her very justifiable view, Kreese is bailing on a plan that Tory carried on her back, right before actually reaching a payout. Dropping the plan at this stage means that, functionally, Tory’s sacrifices have been for nothing. She is seething when she leaves the table and storms off, and it really isn’t hard to see why. She views it not as a mercy, but as an ultimate betrayal from the one person she never believed would let her down.

Full of pent-up aggression at this injustice, Tory heads back to the dojo almost for the express purpose of letting off steam. What she stumbles into, however, is the realization that Sensei Silver and Sensei Kim have invited the prestigious members of the Sekai Taikai Selection Committee to judge their dojo’s worthiness for consideration of entry into the karate world tournament. And then, because of some clever finagling from Daniel and Johnny, Miyagi-Do is thrown into the consideration battle as well.

Tory quickly finds herself selected as the female competitor to represent Cobra Kai in a short first-to-three match against Sam (the representative for Miyagi-Do). Tory mentally and physically prepares herself for the match, but when the competition comes, the male match (Kenny versus Eli/Hawk) is up first. Tory can only watch from the sidelines in horror as a few suspiciously terrible calls from the referee make it abundantly clear that Silver has yet again bribed a ref into forcing a Cobra Kai win.

Her own All-Valley match is playing out before her eyes yet again, although Tory is at least granted the grace of being able to recognize what is happening and doesn’t have to endure being blindsided by it. She knows she can just play along and “beat” Sam again thanks to the corrupt ref. It’s the easy thing to do. It’s the self-gratifying thing to do. It certainly fits with the persona that Tory’s been adopting these past few weeks during her subterfuge with Kreese.

But it isn’t the right thing to do, and she knows it. Having the happiest moment of her life shatter into pieces because of a cheated win didn’t just rob her of a true victory, but it also robbed her of proving to herself that she was the best at something. That, in essence, was the entire point behind her motivation for winning the tournament in the first place. The trophy was just the physical manifestation of her proof of success. She’d know in her heart that she was the best with or without the literal trophy.

“Winning” this match would be the same hollow feeling that she felt when she stumbled upon Silver paying the corrupt ref at the tournament. Not only would it be meaningless, but it would actively disprove Tory’s desire to believe that she’s the best at something. Because the only thing she’d be the best at is winning false victories and letting other people’s money push her to undeserved fame and adoration.

And so Tory leaves. Without warning or fanfare, she slips out of the back of the dojo and refuses to take part in the fight. Silver and Kim are furious, but there’s nothing they can do to conjure Tory from thin air. She’s left her dojo high-and-dry, because she chose the moral high ground over the easy path. Without any other option, Cobra Kai fields Devon as their female fighter, and Devon’s one year of training can’t compete with Sam’s three.

In fact, even with the corrupt ref, the skill gap between Devon and Sam is so high that Sam is able to land one undeniable blow after another, to the point where the ref has no choice but to declare Sam the winner. Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do (or is it Miyagi-Fang after joining with Johnny?) are both officially entered into the impending Sekai Taikai competition.

With their senseis’ permission, the Miyagi-Do students host a massive celebration party in recognition of Sam’s victory and their dojo’s entrance into the world tournament stage. It isn’t all fun and games, however, as Sam bursts into tears upon seeing Miguel making out with another girl (it’s complicated, and way too much to get into for a Tory-focused UICS). She runs outside to try and calm down…and proceeds to do the exact opposite of that when confronted with none other than Tory.

Having been loitering around the party area since the minute she left the dojo and her planned fight with Sam, Tory’s been waiting for this moment to confront Sam alone. It’s made worse due to Sam’s tumultuous emotional state, but Tory’s admittedly not in a much better mental place either. Shaken up by the second cheated ref incident to directly come up in her life, Tory’s finally ready to confess to the one person who needs to hear it the most that the All-Valley was cheated.

So, she tells Sam the truth. The ref was corrupt, and Sam very-well may have technically won instead.

Sam does not, to put it bluntly, take that news well at all.

Instantly lashing out in anger, Sam wastes no time in trying to physically attack Tory after the reveal, loudly berating her all the while. While it’s worth nothing that Sam has legitimate grievances with Tory upon hearing this news (Sam’s “loss” more-or-less lead to the Miyagi-Do dojo dissolving for a few weeks, Sam’s own spiral of depression and aimlessness, and breaking up with Miguel), it’s telling that Tory doesn’t throw a single punch in this scene. She ducks and weaves Sam’s wild, frightening kicks, adamant that she never meant to hurt anyone.

Sam isn’t hearing it, though, and when Robby and Miguel run over to break up the fight, Sam openly lambasts Tory for being a “coward” to afraid and selfish to speak up until now. Feeling the judgmental eyes of everyone at the party upon her, Tory angrily spits out a retort and then runs off, ignoring Robby as he calls for her.

At this point, Tory’s lost (or feels as if she’s lost) almost everything that ever mattered to her in her life. So, she returns to the only thing she can possibly use as an outlet for her emotional frustration: Cobra Kai. She might be afraid of the sensei, she might face chastisement for skipping out on the Sekai Taikai consideration match, and it might not be very good for her mental health, but she’s still holding onto that glimmer of a dream of one day winning a championship.

After all, with all the dojo-merging that Cobra Kai has been doing, the only other dojo left in the entire valley is basically Miyagi-Do, and Tory certainly doesn’t believe she’d ever be welcome there.

Returning to Cobra Kai, unfortunately, turns out to be a horrific (and horrifically painful decision).

After another day of lessons (in which Sensei Kim discreetly catches Tory not verbally uttering the cultish “no mercy” rhetoric alongside the other students), Tory is pulled aside after-class by Kim and Silver. A humanoid dummy made out of inch-thick solid stone is rolled out before her, and Tory is instructed to break apart the dummy’s face…even if her own hand breaks first. As Kim snidely remarks, “It will heal in time for the tournament“.

Tory initial tries to refuse, only to find herself under threat of literally assault from several of the other adult senseis in the dojo. Afraid of their retaliation, Tory reluctantly engages in the test, smashing her fist against the stone dummy’s face. Predictably, this greatly injures Tory, but she is forced to persist by Kim and the other senseis, as Silver watches on dispassionately.

Blow after blow, Tory punches the stone face, increasingly damaging her hand and bloodying her knuckles. Eventually, Kim steps in front of Tory and pressures her even harder, insulting Tory’s dedication to her training. With a cry of rage, Tory lashes out (no doubt aiming for Kim’s face rather than the dummy), and Kim sidesteps. Tory punches clean through the stone, shattering it into pieces…and also breaking her own hand.

Trembling from the pain and the fear, Tory lies low on the floor as the adult senseis around her sneer with derision and walk off. Only Silver pauses to commend Tory for her true dedication to Cobra Kai, before leaving her to clean up her own bloody mess.

She can’t just go to a hospital, though. Tory doesn’t have the money to cover the medical bills. And so, with nothing more than a bag of ice, she heads home to attempt to salvage her ruined hand. Her home, as it always is, is a mess. With a bedridden mom and a young brother in school, and Tory herself working two jobs just to make ends meet, the small apartment is riddled with trash and unfinished chores. There simply isn’t the time to get things done. Nor, now, the motivation.

Tory is left to wallow in the endless circle of torment her life has become…

…until, a few hours later, there’s a knock at the door. It’s Sam.

While Tory was getting brutalized at the dojo, Sam received a very thoughtful verbal dressing-down from Miguel, who finally helped her see the commendable nature of what Tory did. While Miguel concedes that Tory’s should’ve spoken out against Silver sooner (and yes, she should have), the simple fact is that she did, and the ball is now in Sam’s court as to how she’s going to respond, and whether or not she’s going to offer a helping hand.

Though not her favorite idea in the world (Sam and Tory had a veritable truckload of tension between them ever since their fateful encounter three seasons ago), Sam visits Tory’s apartment with an open mind, willing to hear the girl out.

Before she can get to that, though, she reacts in understandable shock and horror in seeing Tory’s mangled hand. Tory brushes off Sam’s concern, presuming her archrival is merely there to taunt her, but even Tory can sense the sincerity in Sam’s explanation of wanting to hear Tory out. Begrudgingly, she lets Sam into her home, and her own rival ends up becoming the first person to ever witness this exceptionally intimate part of her life. Sam quietly takes in the state of the apartment, while Tory goes back to nursing her hand.

In a somber, quietly emotional moment (and one of my favorite scenes in the entire show, acting-wise), Tory recounts her personal struggles over the past few months to Sam. How desperately she craved that trophy. How empty she felt inside after realizing the victory had been cheated. How harshly the desire for revenge against Silver burned within her. How destroyed she felt when it all came apart and her life turned into a cycle of misery.

I wanted to win the All-Valley more than anything. After our match, when they handed me that trophy…that was the best moment of my life. But then I saw Silver and that ref, and it just killed me. I felt like a fraud. And I wanted to get back at Silver so bad, so that’s why I listened to Kreese, but then I just got caught up in more lies. And now my life is a living hell.

Tory, Season Five Episode Nine

Sam listens with full empathy, perhaps finally understanding who Tory actually is as a person, divorced from the world of karate and rivalries and grudges. She doesn’t make an quips or snide remarks. She simply listens, and then responds once Tory finishes. Sam reveals that, now that she has a better grasp on Tory’s situation, she’s willing to actively work alongside her to bring Silver down. She also mentions that she learned some information of her own from a group confrontation of Stingray (the student beaten by Silver and used to frame Kreese), who off-the-record admitted to Silver’s wrongdoing.

This knowledge triggers a logical connection in Tory’s head. Though she of course knew Silver was really to blame for what Kreese was blamed for, she hadn’t known it was by Silver’s own hand that Stingray was assaulted. With this new revelation, Tory realizes that if the incident took place at the old Cobra Kai dojo (which, of course, it did, but Tory can only infer this logically), then security camera footage might exist that would catch Silver in the act!

A plan in place, Tory and Sam call-up the rest of the Miyagi-Do students and everyone heads over to the new flagship Cobra Kai dojo, as Tory remembers Silver moving the old server system from the old dojo into this new one, instead of buying a replacement server. Using Tory’s own keycard to avoid having to break-in, half of the group stays behind to keep watch as Tory and the main gang head into Silver’s office. There, tech-lovers Demetri and Eli begin hacking into Silver’s server, with the intent of finding the crucial footage and uploading it onto the internet.

A problem quickly arises. Namely, Silver has already deleted the incriminating evidence in question. No more footage of him assaulting Stingray exists. Miguel pushes for everyone to think of a back-up plan, but Eli points out that unless other incriminating footage can be found, their plan is sunk.

Luckily, Tory knows exactly what footage to use: The day she confronted Silver about him bribing the ref during the All-Valley.

In a season defined by her selfish sacrifices to forsake everything for a chance at revenge on Silver, it’s rather poignant that Tory’s hugest selfless sacrifice is what finally puts Silver on ice. She willing volunteers the video clip that will publicly out her as the false winner of the All-Valley, all for the greater good of getting the truth out their, putting a terrible man behind bars like he deserves, and truly beginning to clear her conscience and turn her life around. Even though she knows doing so will ruin her reputation among many, and tarnish her status from the All-Valley for the entire world to see, she does it.

It’s an astoundingly commendable move, and a stark contrast to what the Tory of Seasons Two and Three would have done.

The rest of the night doesn’t go completely without issue. A surprise Cobra Kai ambush leads to an all-out brawl at the dojo, and Tory ends up confronted by Sensei Kim (including a really cruel moment of Kim specifically targeting Tory’s broken hand). However, when both Sam and Devon (who reveals that she’s always only been on Tory’s side, and not Cobra Kai’s) come to her rescue, the three are able to fight Kim to a standstill long enough for the video clip to be uploaded to Cobra Kai’s million-subscriber YouTube channel, ousting them to the world.

Silver shows up to try and salvage the situation, but makes a critical mistake when he challenges a newly-balanced Daniel to a decisive match. Daniel easily and utterly serves Silver a humiliating defeat, and the Cobra Kai students now see their sensei’s true colors. He isn’t some unstoppable force, and he isn’t some wise and honorable warrior. He’s a coward, a cheater, a manipulator, and a fraud. The gathered students almost unanimously forsake their status as Cobra Kai members, and Silver is hauled off to jail thanks to a revised statement from Stingray (who makes a claim that his early false testimony was given under duress, which isn’t wholly incorrect).

Tory (who should really probably see a doctor at this point) is instead intercepted by Robby, who earnestly wants to apologize for the way he broke things off with her without understanding her perspective and the secrets she was keeping. Tory, in turn, gently reminds him that she probably owes him an apology too for prioritizing revenge over being a better person. She jokes that she’s not quite in the mood for a sappy reconciliation, so she instead asks for a kiss, and receives one. The two become an item once more.

I know. And I probably owe you one too. But, you know, I’m really not in the mood for all that heartfelt s**t, so for now…maybe just kiss me?

Tory, Season Five Episode Ten

In the span of a single night, Tory went from suffering a life full of misery, to regaining everything she lost, to then receiving more than she’s ever had in her life before. She’s built up and unbreakable bond with Devon, finally put her rivalry with Sam to rest, and repaired her relationship with Robby. She stood on her own two feet without falling under the machinations of someone else (like Kreese or Silver), she did get her revenge on Silver for what he did, and she’s got a clean slate and the calm mindset to push herself for a Sekai Taikai win, fair-and-square this time.

For once, and for the first time since she joined the cast of Cobra Kai in Season Two, Tory’s life is looking to be full of promise!

And that ends off Season Five!

Tory endured an incredible amount of suffering and sacrifice in this season, and emerges as perhaps the most pivotal of its heroes by the time the dust settles.

So where will she go from here? It’s anyone’s guess, really! There’s a single, final season of Cobra Kai left (which will hopefully be out before the end of 2024) and we’ll see Tory’s story through to the end there! Will she make progress in the Sekai Taikai? Will she WIN the Sekai Taikai? Only time will tell, but I’m certainly excited to see her awesome character arc reach it’s hard-fought conclusion!