King Of The Hill Reboot: What Every Main Character Has Been Up To Since The Show Ended

Contains spoilers for "King of the Hill" Season 14

It's been 15 years since we last visited Arlen, Texas. Thanks to Hulu's "King of the Hill" revival series, fans are going back to the fictional town, home of the Hill family. A lot has changed for Hank Hill and his clan since the ending of "King of the Hill" back in 2010. People have moved away, grown up, gotten new jobs, and found new love. That's a whole lot of change to cope with, but aging-up the characters was part of the appeal for the people behind the revival.

Speaking to TVLine, showrunner Saladin Patterson explained why they decided to start Season 14 with a big time jump instead of keeping the characters the same ages like most animated shows do. He said that co-creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels wanted to do something "unique" with the revival. Patterson's aim is to show the Hills "experiencing a new phase of life," an idea that gave everyone involved "a little injection of energy in terms of being excited to revisit these characters."

So what has the "King of the Hill" gang been up to in the years between Season 13 and Season 14, and what are their lives like now as they head toward the already-confirmed Season 15? Read on for all the details.

Hank Hill (Mike Judge) has been halfway around the world since we last saw him, working in Saudi Arabia for the country's national gas and oil company. When he returns to Arlen (which is actually based on a real town in Texas), things aren't like they were when he left. "It's not like he was in a cave," showrunner Saladin Patterson clarified in his TVLine interview. "So most modern conveniences and things, he was aware of... It's not as much Hank not knowing how a cell phone works. It's more Hank being frustrated that we use cell phones for things we shouldn't use cell phones for."

When the revival opens, Hank and his wife Peggy have finally attained their retirement nest egg and are excited to be home at last, but Hank has no idea what to do with his time. Since we last saw him he's had a change of heart when it comes to soccer. He tries coaching in a local soccer league, which is hilarious to see given that the Hank we knew for all those years hated the sport, once telling Bobby that it was "invented by European ladies to keep them busy while their husbands did the cooking." Hank also ends up brewing his own beer for a contest to keep himself busy, which feels a lot more like him. All of his true loves remain eternal, no matter what he's experienced. His time in Saudi Arabia may have given him a new outlook when it comes to soccer, but he's still the same propane-loving guy deep down.

Peggy Hill, who held a number of jobs before working as a real estate agent toward the end of the original "King of the Hill" run, has also retired since we last saw her. Unlike Hank, however, she keeps secretly looking for jobs throughout Season 14, usually ones she's highly unqualified for. Her search for a new place to work peaks when she partners with John Redcorn to help him sell his jarred corn. This comes about after their attempt at forming a wild hog eradication company goes off the rails. All their friends go in as partners, but, thanks to the poor stewardship of Buck Strickland, the enterprise crashes and burns.

Even in her leisure time, Peggy is no idler, though many of her ideas for enrichment fall apart as the revival season goes on. She tries to create a little library for her street, only to cause a town-wide bedbug infestation that rips through Arlen. To make matters worse, the townspeople get accused of being ignorant book burners when they try to rectify the problem. Peggy also tries to learn how to play pickleball, only to severely injure her knee and end up in a panic-inducing MRI machine. After all this time, Peggy is still Peggy — full of herself, opinionated, and strong-minded.

Bobby Hill is now 21 years old and a lot has changed for him since we last saw him. Much of the "King of the Hill" revival revolves around the fact that Bobby is now a grown-up. He skipped college to pursue a career as a chef and is now running a Dallas-based Asian-German fusion restaurant called Robata Chane, named partially after Chane Wassanasong (Ki Hong Lee), whose parents are his primary benefactors, and the type of grilling he does at the establishment. 

When he's off the clock, Bobby lives in a small apartment with Joseph Gribble (Tai Leclaire) and pursues an active dating life. However, there's one thing that hasn't changed for Bobby – he's never really gotten over Connie Souphanousinphone (Lauren Tom). When fate brings them back together, he's astonished to learn she's in an open relationship with Chane. Bobby and Connie can't resist one another, though, and eventually Chane's obnoxiousness and her parent's nonstop pressure encourages Connie to break up with him. Now she and Bobby have to navigate the highs and lows of dating one another as adults, a challenge Bobby is more than eager to meet.

Dale Gribble (now voiced by Toby Huss, who replaced original actor Johnny Hardwick following his passing six episodes into recording the revival) is perhaps the most unchanged member of Hank's peer group. He's still with Nancy, still cheerfully oblivious about Joseph's parentage, and still deeply invested in conspiracy theories. He has his fingers in many pies, but continues to work as an exterminator. Like the Dale we knew all those years, he still tries to get involved in his friend's hopes, plans, and schemes.

The most interesting thing that happened to Dale while "King of the Hill" was off the air is that he ran for Mayor of Arlen and actually won on an anti-masking campaign. The victory came at only 9% due to a swamped candidate field, and even his friends and family were shocked by his win, with Boomhauer confessing that he voted for him as a joke. So what happened? Well, Dale smelled conspiracy in the air and had himself investigated for election fraud, ultimately getting himself removed from office.

Boomhauer (Mike Judge) had already begun the process of settling down before "King of the Hill" ended, and now the retired Texas Ranger spends a lot of time with Luke Jr., the sheltered son of his new girlfriend. Over the course of Season 14, Boomhauer helps Luke Jr. come out of his shell, introducing him to the joys of non-alcoholic beer, the delights of soccer, and letting him play in the alley while the rest of the gang gathers to drink beer and discuss their current lives.

Of all the back alley gang, Boomhauer seems to be the most happily settled into his retired life. He occasionally works for an app called ChoreChimp, which sends him off on jobs to fix things. An unfortunate ChoreChimp-related injury for Boomhauer leads to Hank taking on some work through the app. It's an interestingly conflict-heavy season where Hank and Boomhauer are concerned, as they clash over the latter's attempt at coaching Luke Jr.'s soccer team. Otherwise, Boomhauer continues to be his almost-profound self.

The COVID-19 pandemic happened off-screen in the world of "King of the Hill," but the revival fills us in on how it went for one Rainey Street resident in particular. Bill Dauterive (Stephen Root) became a shut-in with a long beard who never left his bedroom and let his house and body go to pot during the pandemic. He's still something of a hermit when Hank and Peggy return to Arlen. In fact, it's their arrival in town that inspires Bill to get back out there. However, Bill's ordeal has changed him – he still acts like himself, but it's turned up a few notches, showing viewers that, sometimes, wisdom doesn't come with age.

In one episode it's revealed that Bill has made friends at a barber shop by lying about Peggy being his long-distance girlfriend. He even sneaks into the Souphanousinphone's anniversary party for the free eats. He throws himself at Didi Hill (Ashley Gardner) when she shows up to pick up G.H. (Hank's paternal half-brother, who is now grown up) after he spends time with Hank, knowing that she's getting divorced again. It's revealed that his old girlfriend, Laoma Souphanousinphone (Amy Hill), has passed away, which may be contributing to his more-desperate-than-usual behavior.

Joseph Gribble's mustache hasn't gotten much thicker since he hit his 20s and he continues to lack that Redcorn swagger, but he seems happy living with Bobby, eagerly welcoming the numerous guests who show up at their pad. He's definitely got the imaginative and fantastic brain of a Gribble, even though Bobby's not one for listening to his ideas. He manages to bond with Peggy in particular over a game that she's very familiar with thanks to her years of teaching, and he settles easily back into his Three Musketeers friendship with Bobby and Connie.

While Joseph has no girlfriend of his own, he does awkwardly flirt with Connie when he sees her. He's also started working with a road crew since we last saw him, cleaning up brush and other highway detritus for a fee with Dale's help. His relationship with John Redcorn sees great improvement during Season 14, as he finally agrees to spend time on his ranch after years of just thinking of him as the weird guy who hangs around his mom. Dale has come pretty close to finding out about Joseph in the past. Perhaps everything will come out in Season 15.

You probably won't be surprised to learn that the studious Connie Souphanousinphone has entered higher education since we last saw her. She's a student at UT Dallas' Jonsson School of Engineering, and she has been enjoying a life fully independent of her parents, Kahn and Minh. She's double-majoring in electrical and mechanical engineering, which requires a lot of her attention and has led her to embrace a no-fuss lifestyle. This may or may not be inspired by the fact that Kahn and Minh have gone through a divorce between seasons and Kahn is sleeping in the family's garage to keep up appearances.

Living away from Kahn and Minh has led Connie to explore herself as a person. In the revival, we learn that she practices ENM — ethical non-monogamy. She's dating Chane, but their relationship soon becomes insufferable to her because of Chane's playboy ways, even though the union is completely open. The parental pressure they both receive to seriously commit to one another doesn't help. She ends up dumping him and turning toward Bobby for romantic fulfillment, but they struggle to see one another as grown-ups at first. Still, their love seems pure, and Season 15 will presumably build on their relationship.

Jonathan Joss is one of several "King of the Hill" actors who have passed away. He reprised the role of John Redcorn for Season 14, though he sadly passed away before the revival began airing. When we catch up with Redcorn, we learn that he has managed to continue diversifying his life while continuing to stay true to the person he was. In the years since Season 13, he's created his own corn-based business: John Redcorn's Red Corn. He also takes part in Nancy's new business, a real estate web series in which they promote available houses.

And yes, despite a long plotline in which Nancy and John finally split up and stopped seeing each other in the original series, they appear to be back together again. The show is playing coy with that revelation and Dale continues to be completely clueless about the situation. John hasn't, conversely, gotten any closer with Joseph, though there is some hope on that front as the first season wraps up. There's no sign of his last serious girlfriend and her son, so perhaps that relationship is over.

Nancy Hicks-Gribble (Ashley Gardner) has retired as a weather woman and now has a web series called "Selling Arlen" where she uses her on-camera chops to promote open real estate in town with the help of John Redcorn. People publicly speculate about the nature of her relationship with Redcorn. She's coy about it while in public because she's still, obviously, married to Dale. The show seems to be ignoring the fact that Nancy and John broke up and have placed them back together in a clandestine affair once more, only instead of Nancy having headaches, they have the excuse of the business to keep them together.

Nancy continues to appreciate how supportive Dale is of her career, continues to offer terrible advice to Peggy, and is still sly and insinuative regarding everything else. There are some notable differences, though: Since we last saw her, Nancy has gotten closer to Minh. They're very cliquey and seem to enjoy teaming up against Peggy. When she was living abroad, Nancy and Minh started playing pickleball together, and when Peggy feels left out, she tries to take up the sport — with disastrous results for her knee.

When we catch up with Kahn Souphanousinphone, he's living a lie. As hinted at by its title, the Season 14 episode "Kahn-cious Uncoupling" is all about the breakdown of his marriage. It features Kahn and Minh throwing a big anniversary party with all of their friends helping out. The problem is that they have no marriage — they've been divorced for an undetermined amount of time. Only Connie knows, and the threesome shoulder that secret while continuing to pretend to be the ideal family.

Kahn is now living out of his own garage while he and Minh do couples dates with Hank and Peggy. All of this stays under wraps until Hank accidentally finds out the truth, having snuck into the Souphanousinphone family residence and seen the situation for himself. Hank's inability to keep quiet results in their whole neighborhood eventually finding out. A humiliated Kahn refuses to accept the friendship of Hank and his gang, even though Hank rolls a conciliatory Alamo Beer under his garage door. Perhaps it will all work out for the best in Season 15 — it was an unsustainable situation for the Souphanousinphones, after all.

Like her husband, Minh is quietly dealing with the fact that she and Kahn have been divorced for some time, though she's going about it in a different way. She boldly tries to hang out in the alley and sip beer with the guys at one point, declaring that she has just as much right to be there as they do. Even though she's retired, as is every other member of their age group, Minh has not taken her foot off the gas pedal with Connie, hoping she'll land Chane and fully make the Wassanasongs part of their family for good.

This could be why Minh and Kahn kept their separation a secret and continued to pretend that they were a happily married power couple: They want to give Connie every chance to land what they see as the right match, even if Connie herself isn't sure about that. It appears that she's continued to keep up with the Joneses even with Peggy out of the way. But, as they both know, being the queen bee of Rainey Street comes with its own special complications. Many of the best episodes of "King of the Hill" prove that Peggy will always be a force to be reckoned with.