Warning: SPOILERS for Cobra Kai Season 3
Samatha LaRusso (Mary Mouser) is certainly her father's daughter and, in Cobra Kai season 3, she becomes more like Daniel (Ralph Macchio) than ever with a couple of hilarious callbacks to The Karate Kid. Cobra Kai season 3 picks up the story just two weeks after season 2's ultraviolent West Valley High karate brawl that Sam was at the center of. As the students of the Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do dojos fought each other, Sam's arch-enemy Tory Nichols (Peyton List) cut her with a spiked bracelet, which LaRusso needed medical care for, and Sam is still dealing with the trauma of her ordeal in Cobra Kai season 2.
In Cobra Kai season 1, Sam was a popular girl who was initially removed from the renewed rivalry between her father and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka). But Sam saw how Cobra Kai was changing her friends and her then-boyfriend Miguel Diaz (Xolo Mariduena), and she reembraced learning Miyagi-Do karate. Sam gained her own arch-rival in Tory, who joined Cobra Kai in season 2, and they took an immediate dislike to each other even before Tory started dating Miguel. But when Tory caught Sam and Miguel kissing, it sparked her attempt at revenge that erupted into an all-out karate dojo war on the first day of school that ended with Miguel being hospitalized with a coma and critical injuries.
In Cobra Kai season 3, Sam finds herself picking up the pieces of Miyagi-Do after Daniel shuttered the dojo under orders from her mother Amanda (Courtney Henggeler). The LaRussos are caught up trying to save their car dealership business, which sent Daniel to Japan and Okinawa for help. But while Daniel is away, the remaining Miyagi-Do students like Demetri (Gianni Decenzo) and Chris (Khalil Everage) turned to Sam for leadership as Cobra Kai continues to run rampant. In Cobra Kai season 3, episode 4, "The Right Path", the Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do kids faced each other in a soccer game. Sam decides that Miyagi-Do can get even by playing rough and they repeatedly use karate "by accident" to humiliate Hawk (Jacob Bertrand) and the other Cobra Kai on the field. But their attempt at revenge gets violent so Sam and her friends, along with the Cobra Kai kids, are sent to Counselor Blatt's (Erin Bradley Dangar) office.
Counselor Blatt decides Cobra Kai were the victims in the soccer incident and let them off without punishment. Meanwhile, Sam and the Miyagi-Do students received a weekend of "rehabilitative, not punitive, detention" for being the instigators. Sam was furious and responded, "This is bulls---!", which garnered her a second weekend of detention. Enraged, Sam yelled, "This school sucks!" and she punched the locker. In the typically sly way Cobra Kai homages The Karate Kid movies, this is a perfect echo of what happened to Daniel early in The Karate Kid.
After his first violent encounter with Johnny and Cobra Kai, Daniel, who was sporting a black eye, tried to impress Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue) with his skills on the soccer field. However, Johnny and his Cobra Kai buddies weren't having it and they purposely tripped up LaRusso. Daniel's temper flared and he started a fight, which got him thrown off the field by the coach. As he was forced to exit, the humiliated Daniel screamed, "Hey, this school sucks, man! It sucks!"
Of course, Daniel was basically all alone against the Cobra Kai back in the day, until Mr. Miyagi (Noriyuki "Pat" Morita) took Daniel-san under his wing. Sam is luckier since she has friends in Miyagi-Do, but she was also severely traumatized after surviving her fight with Tory, and she feels the pressure of holding Miyagi-Do together to keep fighting Cobra Kai. Still, it's fun to see that Sam is more like Daniel than she realizes, and she had no idea she reacted in Cobra Kai season 3 just like her father did under identical circumstances three decades earlier in The Karate Kid.