‘King of the Hill’ Season 14 review: Shockingly, it’s good

I go into the revival of King of the Hill with great trepidation. Much like the overall bad Hulu run of Futurama, bringing back the Hills and their cast of friends in 2025 appears at first to be a recipe for disaster. It makes sense to expect yet another beloved ’90s/00s era animated sitcom to go Zombie Simpsons and perpetuate eternally because all executives see are the culturally relevant memes these shows turn into. Do we really need to know how Mike Judge’s vision of Arlen, Texas continues? Does it add anything to what some may call the greatest anime of all time?

It turns out the answer to that question is yes. Because King of the Hill Season 14 really knocks it out of the park, I tell you hwhat.

Time comes for even Dale Gribble.

The solution to “how does one go about making more King of the Hill” turns out to be similar to Mike Judge’s revival of Beavis and Butthead: time. Season 14, beginning with the episode “Return of the King,” picks up on Arlen years after the original series finale. Those intervening real-time years sow the seeds of most of the season’s storylines. Slowly each episode reveals more of where the Hills and their neighbors are now in life, and all that time also opens up doors for new characters to work their way into proceedings without forcing the door open for themselves. There’s less nostalgia baiting, each episode feels like checking in on an old friend to see how they’re doing.

This also helps reintroduce King of the Hill‘s comedic foundation in new ways, especially in its ostensible lead. Hank Hill (Mike Judge) remains the ever sturdy pillar that brought us the fantastic “do I look like I know what a .jpg is?” However, by spending many years away from his own comfort zone (living in Saudi Arabia to be precise) means that instead of holding down a world trying to change around him, he is now navigating an America that has changed without him. This is where the new King of the Hill episodes shine the most. Now, Hank gets a new world to react to but with years of accepting things that he might not understand. He’s still thoughtful, even more so in certain aspects. In that way, it’s almost as if Luanne (the late, great Brittney Murphy) continues to leave her mark.

Some things never change, some things have to change.

Meanwhile, Bobby Hill (Pamela Adlon) sees the most change from the time jump, as he now works as a professional chef trying to get his unique restaurant off the ground. Gone is the awkward kid looking for direction in life, now Bobby is a real adult. Thankfully, King of the Hill doesn’t commit the entire season to figuring out what kind of different adults they are and instead Bobby serves as more the de facto deuteragonist of the series. While one of the upsides of King of the Hill is the various overlapping character interactions, one new layer is that those interactions don’t all have to occur in the same town. The Hills can spend entire episodes on separate story arcs, Bobby especially. There doesn’t seem to be any sign of this becoming the Bobby Hill show, but it’s a better direction than chaining Bobby to his childhood home.

Meanwhile, Arlen’s other residents remind us that change is not always inevitable. Dale (the last performances of Johnny Hardwick), Bill (Stephen Root), and Boomhauer (Judge) spend the early episodes on the background, working their way back into the episodes methodically as to not overwhelm the revival with their continuing antics. Much of their various characterizations remain unchanged from the finale; though at least one of these men have something deeper going on that the show chooses to tease out slowly to really catch viewers off guard. Even Peggy (Kathy Najimy) is mostly her very extra self early on in the season, only pulling back later after things get really re-established. Najimy is in top form here especially, sliding right back into Peggy’s nature like she never left.

A worthwhile revival.

King of the Hill Season 14 comes out of the gate focusing on getting viewers reacquainted with the cast, but it also knows that’s not enough to carry the season. A lot of thought seems to have been put into what topics the series would engage with and what it wouldn’t. This review won’t be going into spoiler territory, but credit is very due to most of the topics brought to the forefront. The show doesn’t get everything quite right, especially with the twenty-something cast around Bobby. But it’s far more thoughtful than other painful attempts; hello again, Futurama. Basically, if you are worried about how Dale is going to work in 2025, don’t.

There was no reason to believe bringing back another series from a pretty good ending would net positive like this, but Judge and his team really did it. King of the Hill Season 14 is a rock solid base for at least a handful more seasons. In many ways it remains unique in the adult animation landscape; and I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I was laughing left and right all over again.

King of the Hill Season 14 begins August 4th on Hulu.

Featured images © 2025 Hulu, LLC

Travis Hymas

Travis Hymas is a freelance writer and self appointed Pokémon historian out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Known to be regularly obessive over pop culture topics, gaming discourse, and trading card games, he is a published critic featured on sites such as Uppercut and The Young Folks.