The Return of the King
"Forget it, Hank. It's Texas."
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After many years of a King of the Hill revival supposedly being in the works, the Hill family and their friends and neighbors are finally back with new episodes on Hulu streaming.
Thank God.
For thirteen seasons—from January 12th, 1997 to September 13th, 2009—life in Texas suburbia was brilliantly detailed and dissected by this animated documentary series every Sunday evening at 7:30 central.
I don’t know how to precisely explain why King of the Hill captures a particular vibe that resonates with Texans, but you just know when it you see it. If you’ve lived in Texas for any considerable time, you get exactly what I mean.
It is us. We are it. It is more documentary than sitcom.
Watching this show feels like someone took whole chunks of daily life in the Lone Star State, tossed it into an animation, and attached only a few exaggerations and twists on the end result for comedic effect. I think this is especially true for Texans who’ve lived outside of the state and have something to compare it to.
More broadly, King of the Hill has had lasting power in American culture because it’s a love letter to common sense and a potent argument for why maybe what our country really needs is coming together to laugh at the ways we all seem to fall short and offering each other grace — and perhaps a reminder that we don’t have to tolerate clownish behavior.
Spiritually, it has something in common with South Park in that both run on a similar political engine—an outright disgust with hypocrisy and self-righteousness and hack authority figures—though in very different directions on presentation and tone.
It’s also just really damn funny.
Hank Hill and Peggy Hill have been living in Saudi Arabia for the better part of the past decade while Hank is employed there with Saudi Aramco, residing in a corporate suburban development that Hank wistfully romanticizes as being like something out of the 1950s and laments as “more Texan than Texas.”
They’ve recently retired and returned to the fictional town of Arlen—roughly based on Richardson, a Dallas suburb—to find their old stomping grounds have changed a lot while they’ve been away (bike lanes and gender-neutral restrooms and luxury brand store explosion) even while the characters we know and love still have that charming core of why we were first drawn to them.
Their son Bobby (still impeccably voiced by Pamela Adlon) was a quirky and endearing 13-year-old when the series ended but is now a matured and endearing 21-year-old and the head chef of a Japanese-German fusion restaurant. His childish eccentricity has been replaced with an adult’s focus and discipline.
Former ladies man Boomhauer is now a stepdad, Dale Gribble is still a conspiracy nut but was briefly elected to local office during the pandemic on an anti-mask platform, and Bill Dauterive, bless his heart, is still every bit the cautionary tale for us all.
I respect how the revival has contended with loss. Brittany Murphy (Luanne) tragically passed not long after the series finale in 2009, followed by Dennis Burkley (Principal Carl Moss and others) in 2013, Tom Petty (Luanne’s boyfriend) in 2017, and Jonathan Joss (John Redcorn), who was horrifically murdered by a homophobic neighbor two months ago.
Johnny Hardwick, who voiced Dale Gribble—television’s most lovable conspiracy theorist—passed in 2023. He recorded some bits for the revival prior to his death, but most of the character’s lines are now voiced by Toby Huss, who does an admirable job filling some big shoes but doesn’t quite capture the distinctive paranoia and faux-smarts of Dale that were brilliantly rendered by the late Mr. Hardwick.
None of this really detracts from the revival, which has sharp writing and acting and doesn’t pretend to be the exact same show that left us with a perfect finale at the beginning of the Obama years. It leans into the themes of the past but acknowledges we’re living in a different world.
One of the more insufferable/entertaining parlor games of the Trump era—depending on whom you ask—is debating how fictional characters on popular shows would have voted. I’ll save you the time on this one: most of the characters on King of the Hill, for various reasons, would have supported Trump, probably thrice.
But not Hank Hill. That’s ridiculous. I will not accept this bizarre claim. I am a Hank Hill Democrat, a Hank Hill progressive, whatever the hell you wanna call it.
It annoys me when television’s most honorable Republican character is slandered in being called a likely Trump supporter by people who clearly never understood his worldview. Peggy, maybe. But not Hank.
Hank Hill loves rules. He loves stability. He can’t stand cheats and liars and thieves, and he sure as hell can’t stand fakes and phonies. He agonizes over even the rare misperception that he hasn’t been a straight-shooter and cannot rest until he rights his own wrongs.
He treats others with a baseline of respect and decency, even when he’s quietly judging how they navigate life. He is an exceptional neighbor. He only knows how to engage in good faith with those around him. He is fiercely loyal and has no tolerance for bullshit.
He’s mostly set in his own ways but open to growth, too. One of the funniest narrative arcs in the revival is about his newfound love for soccer, which he picked up while in Saudi Arabia despite previously detesting and dismissing it as not a real sport.
Hank Hill loves America because of his core belief that our country is at its best when government is small and fair, lawns are manicured, meat is propane-cooked, good community is built on collective responsibility, and people are staying out of each other’s private lives. He detests hypocrites and bullies with equal ferocity.
There is no way on god’s green earth that Hank Hill supports Trump. If anything, he’s one of the most anti-Trump characters on television.
Nevertheless, you’re not gonna find much in the way of direct commentary on Trump in this revival. The Orange Menace lingers like something of a ghost in the quiet suburban background of Arlen but isn’t specifically mentioned in any of the ten episodes.
Co-creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels allude to him with their critiques of the rise of conspiracy theorists and con artists and dudebro masculinity hustlers, but there isn’t so much as a sight gag of Trump’s image. In my mind, there are two ways to look at this choice:
You could reasonably claim that’s a missed opportunity. It’s admittedly a tad bit strange that a show firmly centered in the nuances and annoyances of modern American life—seen mostly through the eyes of an old school conservative—doesn’t directly engage on the clown-in-chief who has most shaped the contours of the country over the past decade.
But another way to look at it is with no small measure of relief. It’s kind of nice that the King of the Hill revival serves as a bit of escapism from Trump’s massive ego. It’s almost as though Mr. Judge and Mr. Daniels are reminding us that communities can hold differing viewpoints and still exist peacefully outside the chaotic narcissism of a reality show host who’s a unanimous, first-ballot selection for the Grifter Hall of Fame.
I enjoyed watching the revival absolutely skewer the pillars of the Trump movement whilst simultaneously deploying its trademark exasperation with two-faced, white liberal judgy-ness. Again, like their South Park peers, these are writers who have no patience for assholes or hypocrites, regardless of their politics.
I especially appreciated that Mr. Judge and Mr. Daniels wrote some jokes into the show that neither buy anti-trans propaganda nor treat trans people like we’re too precious for gentle ribbing. One of my biggest laughs came when Hank indicates his preference for lasagna that’s “assigned meat at birth” (as opposed to vegan lasagna), and it’s absolutely a joke I will be stealing.
I’d love to have Hank Hill as a next-door neighbor, and that’s precisely the central point of the show: you can live in peace and disagreement with others so long as they’re engaging in good faith and minding their own business otherwise.
We probably never really had that America outside of fictional Arlen, which is why Hank now feels like a welcome relic from the calm before the storm.
I’d like to think we’ll have it someday.
Regardless, the Hills are back home, and they’ll have to hold us over with their wholesomeness in the meantime.
I don't believe that Peggy would have voted for the turnip. She has/had lots of gay friends (lost her virginity to one of them who was trying to figure out if he was gay, and the gay teachers at her school confided in her, and she kept their secrets) and embraced drag culture once she overcame her surprise in the episode about large shoes for women. She teaches Spanish (badly) and almost got sent to prison in Mexico and would be appalled by the racism of the turnip administration.
Thanks for the write-up!
I had never watched it previously, but now I might (starting from the beginning, no less), in an attempt to try to remember how things used to feel, before everything became poison.