Johnny is happy to get out of the valley to clear his head for a bit with some help from his friends, but unfortunately, the visit isn't an entirely joyous one. Tommy has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the friends' outing basically constitutes one last hurrah for the core members of the 1984 Cobra Kai team. Only Dutch is absent; the actor who portrayed him in the original film, Chad McQueen, had scheduling conflicts, and his absence was explained in the episode as being due to a jail sentence for ol' Dutch, who was always quite the troublemaker.
The four friends have a good time reliving their glory days, getting into a karate fight in a local bar and spending the night camping in the mountains, where Johnny and Tommy have a poignant final conversation after everyone else has retired for the night. Tommy confesses that when the two were teenagers, he had been in love with Johnny's girlfriend, Ali (Elisabeth Shue), but that "someone else struck first." He tells Johnny that this was his reason for joining Cobra Kai; he had wanted the same confidence that Johnny had, and when Johnny expresses regret at how his life turned out, Tommy brings out the big tear-jerking guns. "You still got one thing that's more important than anything, Johnny," he says. "Time. You still have time." Johnny explains that he just wants to keep his students from making the same types of mistakes that he did, to which Tommy replies, "You'll do it, Johnny. You're the champ."
The following morning, Johnny, Bobby, and Jimmy awaken to find that Tommy has died in his sleep. They take comfort in the fact that they were able to give their friend one last great night — which, unfortunately, closely mirrors what Cobra Kai was able to do for Garrison in real life.
