bobby

(S10E13) I've never quite understood the allure of buying clothing that has been made to look faded, torn, and worn out before you even have the chance to wear them out naturally. Keeping my T-shirts from cracking and fading used to frustrate the heck out of me, and now they're selling them that way. I guess the lesson is never underestimate the American consumer's ignorance and desire to conform, especially if they happen to be in high school.

In last night's episode, Bobby and Joseph want desperately to be invited to a popular girl's party. They think if they could just get an awesome pair of pre-faded jeans they'll be cool enough to get an invite. Hank refuses to buy the jeans for Bobby, since he, like myself, thinks they're asinine. He tells Bobby that if he had a job and earned his own money, he would be his own man and able to purchase whatever he wanted. Bobby gets a job holding arrows on a street corner for available apartments, and demonstrates his new skills at the breakfast table: 'Where's the kitchen? Why, it's over there.'

When this season kicked off, there was some speculation that it might be the show's last, so it's nice to hear that it will return for at least one more season. For a show buried in a forgettable timeslot that's preempted half the time by football and auto racing, it's amazing it's lasted this long.

Last night's episode was decent, though it was the same "Hank and Bobby" episode we've seen many times already: Bobby becomes interested in something Hank doesn't feel right about, and Hank spends the episode trying to steer Bobby in the right direction. The writers come back to this story quite often, which makes perfect sense, since Hank's old fashioned outlook and Bobby's desire to be hip and cutting edge creates one of the show's best dynamics.

In this instance, it's Bobby's desire not to shadow his father at Strickland Propane, but to instead clean up dog waste with a handsome entrepreneur that gets Hank riled up. When Bobby decides he can make a load of cash going into business himself cleaning up vomit for drunk college students, Hank finally decides to put the kibosh on it. It's a plot that King of the Hill knows well, but I don't call it being lazy. The Simpsons and Family Guy are comparable to one another in several significant ways, but King of the Hill, as weird and irreverent as it can be at times, has a human element to it neither of those other shows can touch. That isn't to say there can't be moments of humanity in The Simpsons, but King of the Hill has always been about "real people," and even "real people" have to re-learn the same lessons again and again.