First look: 'King of the Hill' reboot still stars Texas charm that made it a treat first time around
A still from season 14 of 'King of the Hill' (Hulu)
Much has happened in the 16 years since we last saw Hank and Peggy Hill, the stars of Mike Judge and Greg Daniels' animated salute to Texas suburbia, "King of the Hill," grilling meat, drinking beer and proselytizing for propane.
For one thing, there's now boba tea as well as Sephora, Gucci and Chanel stores at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, a little fact that splinters Hank's Lone Star preconceptions like a spring twister. He discovers this upon landing in the Metroplex after several years working in Saudi Arabia for Saudi Aramco, where he and Peggy had been putting his propane prowess to good use. After exiting gate D3, he drops his bags, gets on his knees, and kisses the ground, exclaiming, "Ah, Texas!" But then he loudly wonders, after noting all the foreign retailers, if he and Peggy are still in Amsterdam, en route from Riyadh.
'King of the Hill'
When: Begins streaming Aug. 4
Where: Hulu
★★★★ (out of 5)
And so begins the first episode of the much-anticipated 14th season, starting Aug. 4 on Hulu, as Hank (voiced by Judge) and Peggy (Kathy Najimy) try to slip effortlessly back into their comfy, predictable, Mega Lo Mart lives in Arlen, the fictional portmanteau of Allen and Garland that represents the very real sprawl that is the Texas urban landscape. While the new season's charming, and intermittently hilarious, ten episodes don't upend expectations, there's enough character growth to make the series feel slightly different, and not just a re-run of what's come before.
For one thing, re-entry into Arlen isn't seamless, and that plays out over the course of the season. Certainly, things have changed. Soccer's a thing in the neighborhood now, much to the chagrin of Hill's back-alley buddies and gridiron boosters, Boomhauer (Judge), Dale Gribble (Toby Huss), and Bill Dauterive (Stephen Root). Dale's wife, Nancy (Ashley Gardner), and her Native American former healer and lover, John Redcorn (Jonathan Joss, who was murdered in June in his native San Antonio), now have a real estate TV show, "Selling Arlen." And African-American Brian Robertson (Keith David), who rented the Hill house while Hank and Peggy were gone, is now an occasional member of Hill's alley crew.
But the big change is with the Hill's son, Bobby, who's now 21 and a chef. He's living in Dallas and running his own restaurant offering "a traditional Japanese barbecue with a fusion of flavors and techniques from the German traditions of the Texas Hill Country." He serves grilled mackerel with a side of mustard pretzel, speaks some Spanish, still has a crush on his Laotian childhood friend, Connie (now a student at UT Dallas), and is a business partner with another Laotian, Chane Wassanasong, and is roommates with biracial Joseph Gribble. We are the world, and we are Bobby Hill.
Peggy, Bobby and Hank Hill are back for Season 14 of "King of the Hill." (Hulu)
However, change isn't something that just happens around Hank and Peggy. They have changed as well. After all, Peggy, perhaps mistakenly, now considers herself fluent in Arabic while Hank, despite his initial protestations to the contrary, has actually fallen head over goalposts for "the beautiful game," aka soccer.
Other things haven't changed at all. If anything, paranoid Gribble, who never met a rabbit hole he didn't like to fall deep into, is more embedded in conspiracy theories than ever, and Bill still has few discernible social skills.
And Hank, God bless him, stubbornly remains unlike other TV-cartoon dads who often are just lazy laughing stocks. Hank is fundamentally smart, well-intentioned, and good with his hands, though he can be occasionally be obstinate, clueless ("what kind of food is poke?") and flummoxed by all-gender bathrooms and the metaverse. He's not "woke," but he is awake.
Hank and Peggy seem to have a satisfactory sex life that is not the butt of jokes (something not expected from Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin), and he even good-naturedly takes on the manosphere and male alienation this season, showing that big hearts and big biceps aren't mutually exclusive. Just never mind that he makes out-of-date Tom Landry references.
He's the animated embodiment of dad jeans and those Progressive insurance commercials about young homeowners turning into their parents. As Bobby has to remind him, "The world has changed, Dad, the world has changed."
Unfortunately, some memorable characters aren't back for this year. Hank's loudly obnoxious dad, Cotton, died in season 12. Brittany Murphy, the actress who played niece Luanne, and Tom Petty, who voiced her husband, Lucky, have both passed, and the showrunners decided not to recast the roles. (Johnny Hardwick, the original voice of Dale Gribble, died in 2023.)
But, don't cry for me, Arlen, Texas.
Despite the whirlwind of change that has buffeted their world and ours over the last two decades, the series' essence of gentle, low-key, good humor has survived wonderfully intact.
Ah, Texas, indeed.
