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King of the Hill Really Needs to Address Luanne’s Absence Next Season
King of the Hill is going to be continuing its revival with three more seasons, but it can’t really waste any more time and really needs to address where Luanne has gone since the original series. King of the Hill made its surprising return to Hulu earlier this Summer with a brand new revival series taking place about eight years since the end of the original show, and with it fans got to see many of the series’ favorites at a much later stage of their lives. Even with how much ground it was able to cover, there’s still one absence that was just never explained or even acknowledged.
King of the Hill Season 14 introduced fans to much older versions of many of the original series’ characters, and there are some faces who have yet to make their return. While it can be explained with the fact that there just isn’t as much time to cover all the reunions fans might have wanted to see with the revival, Luanne is just completely absent from the revival entirely. Never mentioned or referenced once during this debut season, King of the Hill absolutely needs to rectify this before moving forward.
What Happened to Luanne?
Ahead of King of the Hill’s revival premiere with Hulu, one of the biggest questions fans had was how the show was going to move forward with Luanne. Voiced by the late Brittany Murphy in the original series, there was a question as to whether or not she would be recast for the new episodes. Given that there was already a precedent with its recast of Toby Huss in the role of Dale Gribble following Johnny Hardwick’s passing, and recast of others like Ronnie Chieng as the new voice of Kahn for the new episodes, Luanne’s future was a mystery.
But also ahead of the revival, series showrunner Saladin K. Patterson revealed that Luanne would not be recast at all and instead be essentially retired from the series. “The analogy I use as a sports fan is, sometimes the best way to honor someone’s work is to hang their jersey up in the rafters as a show of respect and what they meant to the organization,” Patterson explained. “It didn’t seem right to recast certain characters.” But the most intriguing part of that explanation was the tease that the show would find a way to honor Luanne either way, “I don’t want to spoil anything, but (we) figured out other ways in the storytelling to honor those characters.”
This had fans excited as to what to expect for Luanne as both she and Lucky (who was voiced by the late Tom Petty) were huge parts of the original series. The revival had shaken things up in terms of the status quo and how much has changed in Arlen, Texas since the original, so the time jump would also allow for a way to explain why Luanne is no longer a part of the show. She’s definitely missing, and that means a key part of the show’s charm is gone as a result. But at least there would be an explanation as to why. That just didn’t happen, however.
Now’s The Chance to Fix This Issue
Luanne was such a core part of the original King of the Hill run that her absence is certainly felt with these new episodes as she offered a fun energy that really led to intriguing dynamics with each character. That absence is felt even more so because not only is she just not seen at all (outside of a family portrait hanging in the background), she’s just not ever brought up at all. And that felt particularly weird considering how close Peggy was with her niece especially. To think they moved all the way to Saudi Arabia, and returned years later, without once ever bringing this up just feels so odd.
King of the Hill is unlike other animated sitcoms of its era. It might have had episodic stories that all wrapped up within a single 23 minute span, but it told a serialized narrative with ebbs and flows. Everything that happened in King of the Hill actually happened to Hank and the others, and it felt like a natural reflection of life as the characters actually reflected on the things that happened. These characters changed much like people do, and it’s that close reflection of grounded realism that makes Luanne’s disappearance all the more odd.
It’s the one black mark on what is otherwise an excellent season of King of the Hill. But at the same time, the revival had to accomplish quite a lot within just ten episodes compared to the lengthier runs it had in its original series. It’s kept the slower pace of that original, but has to do a lot more with each entry in order to better fit within the current TV and streaming landscape. There was just not enough time to fully address and retire Luanne, and that needs to be the first thing on the list for its next season.
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