There is, truly, no show like King of the Hill. Thanks to its somehow impossibly realistic depiction of life in the Texas suburbs, Mike Judge’s animated series, which follows the Hill family throughout their life in the fictional town of Arlen, has evolved into a cult classic in the decade-plus after its shockingly abrupt 2009 cancellation. But now King of the Hill is back, and so is its obsession with food.
It’s been 15 years since we last saw the Hill family, who moved away from their home in Arlen after Bobby graduated high school. Peggy (Kathy Najimy) and Hank (Judge) went off to Saudi Arabia, where Hank worked in — what else? — propane, and Bobby (Pamela Adlon) headed off to the big city of Dallas, where he became a chef and opened Robata Chane, a Japanese restaurant that also boasts German influences inspired by the history of the Texas Hill Country. Now, Hank and Peggy have returned to Arlen, and reunited with their kooky cast of neighbors, including conspiracy nut Dale Gribble (Johnny Hardwick and Toby Huss) and his wife Nancy (Ashley Gardner), and Kahn (Ronny Chieng) and Minh Soupanousinphone (Lauren Tom), a couple of Lao immigrants who moved to Arlen with their daughter Connie (Tom), who’s Bobby’s childhood friend and on-again, off-again girlfriend.
In the show’s original run, it explored a broad range of themes, from goofy Texana storylines with Willie Nelson cameos to more serious subjects, like bullying and LGBTQ acceptance. Even as it explored these bigger themes, though, King of the Hill was, at its heart, always a food show. If there’s one thing you know about Hank Hill, it’s that he’s a salesman of propane and propane accessories, and his belief in the supremacy of that fuel for grilling steaks is practically religious.
But it’s Bobby who’s the true gourmand — a noted fruit pie enthusiast and culinary risk-taker who also enjoys lutefisk. In the Season 7 episode “Goodbye Normal Jeans,” we see the first glimpse of Bobby’s kitchen skills when he starts learning how to cook and clean in his new homemaking class. He’s so good, in fact, that Hank starts to prefer his cooking to Peggy’s, a development that irks her so much that she tries to sabotage the roasted turkey that Bobby wants to prepare for the family’s Thanksgiving dinner. In the final episode of Season 13, aired in 2009, Hank and Bobby finally get their moment of bonding over grilled meats.
In the Season 14 premiere, King of the Hill easily settles back into a familiar rhythm. Even as Hank and Peggy navigate a new world in which everyone shares their pronouns and all-gender bathrooms exist inside Texas barbecue restaurants, it doesn’t feel like 15 years have passed since the last time we saw them. Hank attempts to adjust to the boredom of retirement, leading him to take up homebrewing his own beer, which devolves into a competition with Bobby, pitting the son’s chef expertise against Hank’s 40 years of drinking beer. The two end up in a Dallas homebrewing competition, where both learn that winning isn’t as important as spending time with your family.
As Hank and Peggy readjust to life in Arlen, Bobby’s busy trying to make his restaurant a success. He’s passionately trying to make German Japanese fusion happen — grilling yuzu sausages over binchotan charcoals, frying up herring tempura — and hoping to impress his stodgy parents with his skills. It’s the charcoal, of course, that becomes a source of conflict between Bobby and his father, who eventually comes around to understanding that Bobby has to use binchotan in order to most accurately approximate true robata-style cooking.
And as with all restaurants, there are more than a few problems for Bobby to solve. His business partner and former middle school bully Chane Wassanasong (Ki Hong Lee) is too busy partying with his frat bros to really help with any of the actual work, but he’s always around to take the credit for Bobby’s successes, as when he caters a 30th wedding anniversary party for Kahn and Minh. He’s also trying to figure out how to make peace with the fact that Connie, who he still very clearly has feelings for, is in an “ethical non-monogamous” relationship with Chane.
Across these 10 new episodes, Judge and showrunner Saladin K. Patterson present a King of the Hill that feels endlessly familiar to anyone who’s spent countless hours rewatching reruns of the show in syndication, or on Hulu. It’s true to the original formula without feeling stale or stuck in a bygone era. It isn’t overly obsessed with how much has changed since its cancellation in 2009, but does comment occasionally on the ways in which society has moved forward — and backward. When Hank attends a “male empowerment” seminar with his younger brother, he’s quick to dispel the toxic masculinity that’s on offer, and that’s what we’ve come to expect from a guy like Hank. He might be a little stuck in his ways with regard to Ronald Reagan and propane, but he’s not willing to cosign hateful behavior.
It’s also refreshing to see that Hank has fully embraced grown-up Bobby, even if he’s still confused by many of his son’s choices. “That boy ain’t right” may still be his most common refrain about Bobby’s behavior, but it’s always obvious that he’s trying, that it comes from a place of love. He might not understand why Bobby wants to be a chef instead of a propane salesman, but he always supports his son eventually.
Ultimately, it just feels really nice to be back across the virtual table from the Hill family once again. Watching Hank and Peggy stumble through an awkward dinner with Bobby’s vegan girlfriend is both nostalgic and of the moment, the kind of wholesome escapist television that makes you want to keep coming back for more. If anything, I’m mostly bummed that there aren’t more new episodes to keep me distracted from the horrors of the world, and I’m starting to think that now is the perfect time to rewatch King of the Hill’s entire run from start to finish.
