King of the Hill's showrunner breaks down the biggest changes in season 15, and season 16 plans

“I think the show is a lot deeper emotionally than it was before,” Stephen Root, who plays Hank Hill's sad-sack neighbor Bill Dauterive, tells Polygon.

Root points to one particular new episode where Bill starts attending cuddle therapy out of loneliness, but the entire thing turns out to be a scam. Bill's friends figure out what's happening and save him before delivering a pep talk about not giving up on love. It's the kind of moment the original series often broached, without getting quite as emotionally deep.

"You get closer to the characters because they're more real-life than they ever were before," Root says. "You're getting to emotionally connect with them as an audience member.”

Perhaps Root is right. While the original show had plenty of “Bill is lonely” episodes, most of them prioritized laughs over the emotional complexity of it all, and rarely did showrunners Mike Judge and Greg Daniels devote so much time to the more uplifting quality that ended the cuddle therapy episode. The same can be said about the season 15 episodes where the Hills get a new dog and another where Peggy is experiencing menopause. They’re still very funny, but there does seem to be a more delicate, thoughtful approach to the subject matter.

If there is a change, several factors are likely at play. It took years to develop this revival, which has been in development since 2017. The show only has 10 episodes per season now, as opposed to the 20-plus episodes per season that were ordered during the original run, giving the writers more time to develop them. While those are definitely factors, the difference likely has to do with the way Judge and Daniels have approached the material, along with executive producer and new showrunner Saladin Patterson.

“I think we were more settled in as a staff — the writers, the animators, the directors,” Patterson tells Polygon.

For King of the Hill season 15, Polygon speaks to Patterson, along with Root and several other cast members, to unpack the biggest difference between seasons 14 and 15, and find out why it took so long for us to find out why Hank went to Saudi Arabia.

The difference between season 14 and 15

“Because of the conceit that we were working with — with aging the characters up and having Hank and Peggy, having spent the last nine or 10 years in Saudi Arabia and coming back to Texas — season 14 was a lot of Hank (Judge) and Peggy (Kathy Najimy) catching up on some things. That's where some of the comedy came from,” Patterson says. “Thankfully, that was very well received by the audience and everybody was on board with that.”

Season 15, however, would be different.

“For this next season, we kind of wanted to take a little bit of a breather and say, 'Okay, it's not as much Hank and Peggy catching up. Now, putting them out of their comfort zone will be things that would've been challenging for them had they still been here the whole time.' Meaning, new experiences that are a result of them being people of a certain age," Patterson says. "So now, the relatability is more [about] leaning into the fact that Hank and Peggy are empty nesters. They're retired; they're in their mid to late 50s; Peggy would be dealing with menopause; Hank and Peggy find themselves of the age where they're now being targeted for AI scams. That has nothing to do with the fact that they went away to Saudi Arabia.”

While Hank and Peggy have settled into their lives back in Texas, the same is true for the returning crew. For season 14, those making King of the Hill had to prove this update was worthy of the original, beloved series. Having cleared that hurdle, storytelling became easier.

“We felt more settled and that shows up on the screen," Patterson says. "A lot of the stories now are because [we're] able to pull personal life stories. Hank's just a few years older than me. Bobby and Connie are the same age as mine, Mike’s, and Greg's kids. So we're able to live our lives a little bit and pull from there, versus having to figure out more of the plot stuff of resetting and rebooting.”

The same goes for the voice-acting cast, even those taking on new challenges. Toby Huss, who voiced Hank’s neighbor Kahn in the original series, now voices Dale, taking over for his friend and co-star Johnny Hardwick, who passed away midway through recording season 14.

“I'm more comfortable now,” Huss tells Polygon. “It's less sad now than it was because it's your buddy. Your buddy passed away and you're doing your buddy's voice. You're feeling it in your body and you hope you're being true to the thing that he made all those years ago. Johnny was really creative and funny and sweet, so I'm just trying to stay in that world that he created.”

Huss adds, “It's easier now because it hurts less to do it. I'm kind of finding the joyfulness of hanging out with my buddy Johnny for a while while I read those lines.”

Why Hank and Peggy moved to Saudi Arabia

In the season 15 finale, it is revealed that Hank quit Strickland Propane because when Buck Strickland (Stephen Root) decided to retire, he didn’t name Hank as the new manager. Instead, Buck’s ne’er-do-well son was appointed. On advice from Boomhauer (Judge), Hank put a profile up on LinkedIn and, before long, was offered a job with the Saudi Arabian oil company, Aramco. While Hank and Peggy wrestled with the decision — particularly because Bobby was still in high school — Hank accepted the job and they moved away.

Given that the revival of King of the Hill began with Hank and Peggy’s return, it seemed as though this was the plan all along, but it wasn’t.

“I wish I could say we were brilliant enough [where] we had [that] in our heads from the very beginning, but no,” admits Patterson. “We did not necessarily know why Hank had quit Strickland and what had led to him going to Saudi Arabia. But as we felt more comfortable, it just felt like a natural thing that was pointing us to this. We had seen Buck Strickland in the finale of season 14. That was the first time seeing him back and that dynamic was the same. Hank still felt like he kowtowed to Buck too much. So, we were like, 'Okay, so if that's still the nature of the relationship, what do we think led to Hank leaving?' Answering those kinds of questions came up as we got more settled into what life was now.”

What about Bobby?

The trickiest thing about moving the Hills across the world was Bobby, who would have been in high school at the time.

“With Bobby, we talked a lot about, 'Okay, so they probably missed Bobby's high school years. Bobby's established now as a chef. Do we think he decided that before they left or after?' Those kinds of questions were coming up, which led us to say, 'Oh, you know what? What if we married the two together, that their decision to leave him here had to do with his decision to want to pursue being a chef?' Those things came, but we had to live with some episodes first before coming to that,” Patterson says.

Of course, Bobby couldn’t be left alone, and the finale reveals that Bobby went to live with his cousin Luanne and her husband Lucky for his final year of high school. Those two characters, who were regulars in the original series, did not return for the revival as both of their voice actors, Brittany Murphy and Tom Petty, had passed away. The idea that they helped Hank and Peggy in such a big way is a touching tribute to the characters. It’s also rather poetic since Luanne had moved in with Hank and Peggy back when the original series began after her parents wound up in jail and her house tipped over.

Patterson explains how they came to that creative choice.

“We always had in the back of our minds, 'Hey, what would be a nice reference for Luanne, considering that she's not in the show right now?’ Because of that, as we were exploring things, it was like, 'Okay, this solves the problem of why would Hank and Peggy leave a 16, 17-year-old son here?’ Well, they didn't leave him here alone," he says. "He had Luanne and Lucky.”

Once again, this was not the plan from the start. It just came about naturally.

“Those things came together well," Patterson says, "but it wasn't that we planned it. It's just one of those things that kind of presented itself."

Season 16’s new status quo

At the end of season 15’s finale, after the flashback story is told, a big new twist comes to King of the Hill. Hank buys 51 percent of the faltering Strickland Propane. Once again, Patterson, Judge, and Daniels came up with this idea along the way.

“What we did have was the idea that Hank and Peggy had done pretty well financially at Aramco," Patterson says. "We touched upon this in season 14, with the whole investing in their retirement thing, but we were like, 'How can that benefit us in an active way? Hank has this nest egg, what are some interesting things he could do with it? And what if he realized there was an opportunity to now be an owner at Strickland?’ It really just came from us exploring the things that we have set up and seeing what are some natural, interesting ways that we could go with that.”

Patterson also says that putting Hank in charge of Strickland has presented tremendous story potential for season 16 and beyond.

“We're picked up through season 17,” says Patterson. “So now we get to see Hank in the Strickland environment, but he's calling the shots now. How is Hank different when he is the boss? How is he a different boss and owner than Buck was, considering Buck is still alive and in the picture?”

One thing Patterson makes clear is that Buck isn’t going anywhere.

“Buck still owns 49 percent of the company,” he says. “Hank still has to deal with Buck, but the power dynamic has shifted now. Hank's used to kowtowing to Buck, but now he has the power. At the same time, it's Hank’s first time being a boss and owner, so he has to face some challenges he's not prepared for. The irony is, what if there are certain challenges Buck is actually better prepared for, even though Hank's a better person? Hank [may have] to go to Buck, who's a moral derelict, but he's a charmer. And Hank, for all his good points, isn't necessarily a charmer. Being a charmer in the world of business is an asset. And so, Hank is having to deal with that. Those are the sorts of things that opened up to us in a really fun way.”

But a new change in the power dynamic between Hank and Buck doesn't mean Buck will evolve. Despite all the changes to King of the Hill, Root makes clear that Buck is the same old scoundrel.

“I think, of all the characters on his new show, Buck has not changed one iota,” says Root. “He's still kind of an asshole and thinking about himself all the time. I don't think he'll ever change.”

This should come as a relief to fans. Hank and Buck’s relationship in the original series was one of the most reliable sources for comedy (like that time Buck tried to frame Hank for murder). Like with seasons 14 and 15, longtime fans of King of the Hill should expect that same thoughtful balance between the familiar and the new. With the same down-to-Earth vibe that’s defined King of the Hill’s subtly comedic voice, but enough new changes to make the revival worth exploring in the first place.

So many television shows nowadays, no matter the genre, have intricate, multi-year plans for their characters, but King of the Hill seems to be bucking that trend. By waiting for inspiration and getting to know the characters again before deciding their biggest story arcs, King of the Hill has made creative choices that feel correct and, indeed, comforting. Perhaps more than any animated series in history, King of the Hill has been about capturing real life, so it's only natural that the creative minds behind the show allow it to develop at life’s real, sometimes slow, pace.

---

King of the Hill is streaming on Hulu and Disney Plus.