Season Review: King of the Hill Season Fifteen
King of the Hill is one of the shows I’ve been hearing endless amounts of praise about since the beginning, yet I didn’t find the right moment to watch it. That is, until I was given the chance to review the show’s revival era streaming exclusively on Hulu. Advertised as the show’s fourteenth season, the King of the Hill revival reunited fans with the lovable, everyday Hill family as they encounter big changes in Arlen, Texas. Notably, Hank Hill’s son, Bobby, is all grown up and is running a Japanese restaurant as a chef, challenging Hank’s usual perspective on the world from his past experiences. Watching these latest episodes made me understand why everybody’s been loving this animated sitcom created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels. It’s the type of adult animation that uses humor and storytelling to reflect the amusing authenticity of the conventional and mundane aspects of everyday life, notably topics we ourselves encountered.
Usually, when adult animated shows explore certain topics, they poke fun at different sides of the conversation through mean-spiritedness, crude humor, and the like. For King of the Hill, it avoids the typical raunchiness in favor of highlighting life’s complexities and commentaries with heart and honesty. Because of that, it left me hopeful that the show’s revival era has a strong future ahead, especially since it’s currently been picked up for two more seasons. Its fifteenth season aims to keep that hope alive as Hank and his family face even more slice-of-life issues while Bobby continues to grow into a responsible adult. The most notable example of the latter is his relationship with Connie, in which he experiences a few trials testing his loyalty, particularly involving Connie’s divorced parents. This aspect is one of the main focuses of development throughout its 10-episode season, along with Bobby competing in “King of the Grill”, and it’s also one of the reasons I’ve been liking Bobby as a character.
As for the episodes themselves, they’re exactly what you’d expect from King of the Hill regarding its humor, commentary, and heart. Based on my experience with the previous season, as well as the show’s concept, I couldn’t ask for anything different. Similar to its fourteenth season, season fifteen continues its “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach, in which it offers the same thematic and comical patterns as the show’s original seasons, while blending them with modern topics we’d normally come across today. It’s similar by design, but also somehow refreshing in its modernity. It retains its core themes of adaptation, change, responsibility, and family, as well as incorporating them with wit, warmth, and realism. At the same time, the season highlights the modernity of everyday life from a blue-collar worker’s perspective, including electric vehicles, AI, and sci-fi conventions, without overdoing its crude humor. In a way, its fifteenth season offers the usual King of the Hill formula we’ve seen in previous seasons, and that’s why the show remains one of the kings of adult animation.
It still is quite a shame that it didn’t take me until its revival to start getting into King of the Hill, since I’ve been hearing great things about it. However, I am also still glad that I was able to do so and understand why people have been loving it. With its fifteenth season, King of the Hill still carries the mundane charm, wit, thematic nuance, and heart we’ve known and loved since its arrival in 1997. Even if a couple of episodes came close to matching the effectiveness of others, the season’s engaging character development and thought-provoking messages continue to help the series stand out from other adult animated sitcoms. With another season being renewed, it’s safe to say that its revival age still has some propane left in its tank.
