King Of The Hill Season 14 Review: The Animated Classic Makes A Hilarious Comeback

It's been 15 years since "King of the Hill," the Texas-set animated sitcom created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, finished its original run, but in many ways the show has only grown in relevance and esteem. The lingering presence of Hank Hill (voiced by Judge himself) and his loving but awkward family has been a soothing influence to longtime fans, while newcomers to the show have found it on streaming and responded to Hank and his friends' persistent decency even as political and social turmoil have shifted American life.

There's something deeply alluring in the simple goodness of the Hill family in turbulent times, but the open question ahead of the show's revival was whether or not Hank and company still had a place in the world we're in now. How would Hank respond to the changing times? What does his world look like today? Who did he vote for, how did his views evolve, and most importantly, does he still matter as both a voice of reason and a sitcom icon?

Now, Season 14 of "King of the Hill" is finally here, and very happily, it's like the show never left. Smart, warm, and ambling along at the same easy pace that made it a favorite in the first place, one of the greatest sitcoms of the last 25 years has returned in triumph.

In the years since we last saw them — check out our ending of "King of the Hill" explained for details on how the show left off — the Hill family has undergone some big changes. Hank (Mike Judge) and Peggy (Kathy Najimy) Hill spent years away from their Texas home, living overseas while Hank worked for a propane company in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, their son Bobby (Pamela Adlon) skipped college in favor of a career as a chef and restauranteur in Dallas.

As the show returns, the Hills have just arrived home after their stint in Saudi Arabia, and Hank is just happy to be back in Texas where he'll begin his retirement at the same old house in Arlen with Peggy by his side. But of course, the Arlen he left is not the same as the Arlen Hank goes home to, and if he wants to settle back in he'll have to get used to some changes — even if some things will always stay the same.

This is a very promising start, and the first episode of the 10-episode season (all of which were shown to press ahead of the premiere) spends a lot of time just following Hank as he discovers things like bike lanes and new city ordinances, not to mention changing businesses and neighborhoods, have changed his hometown in ways he finds frustrating and strange. But "King of the Hill" is too smart to dwell on the "Old Man Yells at Cloud" stuff for long, and after a welcome period of adjustment, the Hills are just right back to a version of their old lives, with a new set of concerns.

The great trick of "King of the Hill" as a sitcom that dealt with modern American political and social issues was that the series always dealt with these things through the framework of a character comedy. It was always about what Hank was going through, or Peggy, or Bobby, not about a larger treatise on a communal or national issue. That's what made the show so emotionally and narratively satisfying in the first place, and that's what Judge and company have held on to here, delivering a series revival that simultaneously feels like the same show we know and love and like a refreshingly human take on everything from cultural appropriation to veganism to far-right masculinity grifters.

But Hank, Peggy, and Bobby are never alone in all of this. "King of the Hill" was, is, and always will be an ensemble show about the community surrounding the Hill family, and most of those familiar faces are back. Dale Gribble (formerly voiced by the late Johnny Hardwick and now voiced by Toby Huss) is still a conspiracy theorist extraordinaire; Bill Dauterive (Stephen Root) is still a codependent mess; and Boomhauer (Mike Judge again) is ... well, he's still Boomhauer. Their banter is sharp as ever, and their hijinks are still deeply engrossing, even if they're all a little older and a little stranger.

As in the original series, this incarnation of "King of the Hill" knows how to spread the wealth of storytelling around to its ensemble. There are whole plots devoted to Bill's social awkwardness, Dale's scheming, Peggy's ambition, and more, all shifted deftly to consider the place we find them all in right now. Hank used to worry about being a good father, a principled businessman, and an adequate husband. Now he worries about how to spend his time in retirement, what happens when his body gives out on him, and of course, how he's supposed to break it to his friends that he enjoys soccer now. Meanwhile Bobby's trying to figure out a love life and a business at the same time, Peggy's looking to recapture some of her old energy, and everyone else in Arlen is dealing with issues of their own — all captured with empathy and palpable joy by the cast, animators, and writers.

Reviving a TV series is a high-wire act, all about balancing out the familiar with the new. Some shows stray too far into uncharted territory and can't ever find their way back, while others come off as stiff, trying too hard to be something they can never be again. "King of the Hill," in its return, is smart enough to see this problem coming, and makes a large part of its new season about that very issue. Hank likes things the way they've always been, but he also recognizes that he can't sit and stew in the same old things forever, or he's going to fade away. That creates great dramatic tension and moments of laugh-out-loud comedy, but it also manages to be remarkably true to what the show always was. At its best, "King of the Hill" is about a regular guy just trying to find the best path forward for himself and the ones he loves no matter how bizarre, alien, and uncomfortable the world might be. With that in mind, we just might need this show more than ever, and the new "King of the Hill" delivers, on every level, a remarkable return to form for one of the 21st century's best animated series.

"King of the Hill" returns on August 4 on Hulu.