It’s been 15 years since we last enjoyed the company of Hank and Peggy Hill. Barack Obama had just entered the White House, Hank was a younger man with an exciting adventure ahead of him and all was, if not quite well with the world, certainly at least explicable. But now? Season 14 of this revived, beloved animated sitcom is upon us, feeling anachronistic yet also oddly timely. It’s like reconnecting with a group of old friends and realising that, while they are much as they always were, the context in which you now see them has altered beyond all recognition.
Playing slightly against cartoon convention, the Hills’ lives have moved on. Unlike, for example, the ageless Simpsons, everyone is visibly older. In the intervening years, the propane industry has taken Hank and Peggy to Saudi Arabia. As we rejoin them, they are on the plane home. Hank has been in the toilet for hours because, as Peggy sees fit to inform the other passengers, “he now has the urethra of a seven-year-old”. When they touch down in Texas, Hank kisses the ground. But will he recognise the place?
As they drive around their neighbourhood, Hank has a realisation. Their gated community in Saudi Arabia was “more Texan than Texas”. The US has exported an idealised version of its past especially for the ex-pats, even as the country itself has transformed beyond all recognition. King of the Hill always did subtle political messaging, wrapping pointed observations in the gentleness of the comedy.
Hank is quickly back on familiar territory, standing by the fence outside his home, sharing a beer with his old pals. Bill has let himself go, badly. Boomhauer is still mumbly, but now has a similarly mumbly child. He greets Hank with a slightly surprising hug. As a man who still expresses his love for his son by offering to check the oil in his car, Hank finds this awkward. But as ever, the writing brings a remarkable amount of nuance to these simply but carefully constructed characters. Even in retirement, Hank is working through a few things.
Dale, though, is a different keg of beer altogether. He hasn’t learned anything; instead the world has come around to him. Back in the day, Dale’s fondness for conspiracy theories made him the butt of the jokes. He doesn’t seem like such a harmless eccentric any more, though. Needless to say, he references “the pandumbic”. Hank, though, is old school and old media; he had access only to Fox News and CNN while in Saudi Arabia – although he feels he has to apologise for having watched CNN.
Hank is a Republican – during the show’s original run, his response to learning that he was driving through Bill Clinton’s home town was to lock his car doors. But this adds real poignancy to the new iteration of the show. Much has changed in the US and not everything to Hank’s satisfaction, with one of those things being public discourse.
At one point, Hank, Peggy and Dale go on a museum tour themed around George W Bush during which they are offered the chance to role-play a cabinet meeting. However, it degenerates into wild fiction as participants start ranting about “Obama’s Kenyan handler”. Dale is no longer an outlier – he’s now a thought-leader. Mike Judge’s and Greg Daniels’s writing perspective is evident here: Hank longs for an old, moderate America that couldn’t always agree, but could at least accept shared terms of reference within which they could argue.
There is, however, a kindness to King of the Hill, which finds equal expression alongside the show’s occasional disquiet. There is charm and progress in its apparently changeless setting. The Hills’ son, Bobby, was once a chubby, geeky misfit. Happily, he has been given an upgrade that feels at once generous, eccentric and earned. He is a chef at a Japanese restaurant and Hank’s and Bobby’s familial battles are now fought via the proxies of food and drink. Hank and Bobby enter a brewing contest. “It’s just a friendly contest between father and son,” says Hank. “Where the father will kick his son’s ass.” Father and son receive a necessary lesson in humility.
There remains a lightness and ease to these exchanges. Fittingly, as is the case with most longstanding relationships, the old rhythms return almost immediately, for the Hills and for viewers. Often, King of the Hill drifts toward the neat and the saccharin. It’s not a show that will ever hold back on the hugging and learning. But that feels entirely deliberate; at the moment, a show prioritising modesty, tolerance and gentle revelation feels more welcome than ever.
