As for the episode itself, Bobby and his father Hank finally found something they liked: beef. Bobby knows his cuts down pat and he got involved with a local college by helping them with their competitions. Perhaps it’s just me, but the idea of meat grading competitions and whatnot all just seems ridiculous. Do they really have this sort of stuff in Texas?

Anyway, true to form, when Bobby found something uncomfortable with the team, he decided to quit. I have to hand it to Bobby for showing up to the championship anyway. He won the whole thing by himself when the team bus was hijacked by a rival team. That little stunt was shocking to say the least.

It wasn’t the only shock… Boomhaeur was a Texas Ranger. What?! I admit that I have missed stretches of this series because of its limited availability on DVD, but I don’t recall any hints to his being a Ranger.

This was the episode to choose for the finale, not that I have seen the others that they chose not to air. The ending really did feel like an end to the series. I didn’t just like seeing Hank and all of the Rainy Street residents coming together for a final cookout, I loved it!

Fox, it’s time to get off your ass and release the rest of this series on DVD. There is an interest in this show.

Rating: 8

There was a big dance at Bobby’s school and he and Joseph were without a date. Joseph found a date with a few days to spare, but Bobby wasn’t quite so lucky… at first, that is. Three girls saw him as a ‘project’ and took him under their wing.

I thought this was going to go in an entirely different direction, mirroring a few high school comedies with the girls doing a male makeover on Bobby for a change. Instead, they used and abused Bobby by having him be their gopher and source of entertainment. It was pathetic. I felt sorry for Bobby as Hank tried to get him to realize what the girls were doing to him.

It wasn’t until the end that Bobby realized what was going on and I did like how he was a gentleman through it all, standing up for the ladies. Hank’s words about waiting on women was nice, but it would have been great if the show had ended with Brad Paisley’s terrific song “Waitin’ on a Woman”.

Rating: 6

The experience was entirely different for Boomhauer and the Canadians. While Boomhauer had a great time meeting a woman, the Canadians didn’t get along whatsoever with Hank and the people of Arlen. The rudeness of the Canadians was honestly surprising at times. Some of the cracks were pretty good. Hank isn’t the guy who is always itching for a fight, but if I were in his shoes, I may have thrown a few punches.

This episode really felt like an episode of King of the Hill after the disastrous “Manger Baby Einstein” which aired the previous week. The Rainy Street residents saw their fair share of frustration and beer, but it was generally a good time had by all. It’s too bad the guys didn’t get to keep their Kegerator, but they did get to keep the lawn furniture that Peggy fell in love with.

The series comes to a wrap September 13th, 2009 with the final two episodes. There are actually more episodes to air, but Fox is only going to air two. The others may show up in syndication eventually. It’s disappointing that Fox isn’t willing to air the remainder of the episodes. They already gave up on selling new DVDs.

Rating: 7.5

The episode dealt with the events following Luanne’s daughter’s birth. In an attempt to cheer the little tyke up, Luanne used some hand puppets and it worked like a charm. Before you knew it, Luanne was a big star, going to shows, doing DVDs, autograph sessions.

Not long after the skyrocketing success, Luanne’s career crashed and burned. She wasn’t popular anymore and she was back home taking care of her daughter.

If there was anything in this episode I liked, it would have to be Hank. He and I share a lot of the same opinions on things and the idea of making dvds for infants is repulsing. To give the mom or dad a little spare time for other things, they sit the kid in front of the television, making him/her dumber. It’s amazing that so many parents are willing to sacrifice the intelligence of their children for some extra time to do something that is actually less important than the well-being of the child.

Rating: 2

With the boys in town getting invitations for baseball, Bobby was looking forward to another year of an American classic. Hank, on the other hand, was tired of seeing his boy humiliated by another poor year of baseball. Sports haven’t been Bobby’s thing, with him being particularly bad in baseball.

Hank got Bobby signed up for a relatively unknown team and found that the coach was quite enthusiastic about Bobby’s lack of skills in the game. In fact, it was kind of ridiculous to see the coach cheer on Bobby as he made screw up after screw up. At one point, Bobby realized that his coach was full of it and left the game with his father’s aid.

Bill’s role was very out of the ordinary. It’s strange to see Bill take such an interest in the team. It felt a little out of character to have Bill in a somewhat powerful position within the local team’s organization. He didn’t get to boss Hank around nearly enough. The little bit of comedy could have been much funnier if they had put more emphasis on it.

Rating: 6

It’s true that King of the Hill isn’t as funny as it used to be. There have been some pretty decent episodes this year, but I don’t consider this one to be one of them. While it had an interesting start, it didn’t have the ending I was expecting.

Cotton’s ashes aren’t the only thing that have gone down the toilet…

We haven’t heard a whole lot about Hank’s deceased father Cotton for obvious reasons. It was a little surprising to see him mentioned on the show again. He asked Hank to be the executor of his will and this proved to be a lame set of tasks. All Hank really wanted to do was learn something about his father. After talking with Bobby, Hank realized he didn’t really know much about his father and Cotton’s widow wasn’t of any help since she has moved on to a new relationship.

While Hank and Peggy worked on the list of chores from Cotton, Dale and Bill got into a ridiculous fight over a beer can that didn’t get properly disposed of. Dale tossed a can at a trash can and refused to pick it up when he missed. It’s difficult to think of a sillier fight. This one really takes the cake.

In the end, Hank learned that his father couldn’t have killed the fifty men during WWII if it weren’t for the other men in his platoon and Hank felt the same way about his friends. He needs them whether he likes it or not.

As for the plumbing PSA at the end of the episode, I thought it was silly, but it also sort of goes along with the show. It allowed Hank to have a few more uncomfortable moments about “personal business.” Still, the fact that Hank didn’t learn much about his father was a big drag on this episode. I would have been much happier with this episode if something notable were uncovered about Cotton’s past.

Rating: 5.5

“Born Again on the Fourth of July” showed a different side of Bobby, one that is lethargic. Okay, so it’s not exactly a new side of Bobby, but Bobby hasn’t been the lazy boy we used to see from time to time. He’s become more active as he’s grown up, no longer a slug, generally speaking.

Seeing Bobby sitting on the couch eating potato chips and having Hank ask him to stand up, just to see if he could, well, that was hysterical. I know there are days when I feel like Bobby did, but I don’t believe I would ever go to church to fix it.

Bobby’s behavior was in serious need or changing. He was not just lazy, but also rude and dismissive. Hank reluctantly allowed Bobby to go with Lucky to his church in hopes of seeing some changes. And it did work, but it wasn’t perfect. Bobby became a preaching machine, annoying just about everyone he tried to help.

While Bobby was being born again, Hank and the other residents of Rainy Street squared off against the residents of the next street over. Each year they have a Fourth of July celebration, complete with food and fireworks. Their celebration is also a competition and Hank doesn’t want to lose again, electing to go with the big (illegal) fireworks. Hank’s plan doesn’t work out quite so well when Bobby gets involved and destroys Hank’s paper mache Uncle Sam.

“Born Again on the Fourth of July” was a surprisingly funny episode of King of the Hill. I really wasn’t expecting to laugh through any of this, but the writers did a good job of coaxing an occasional laugh out of me. It was a good episode, but I just felt this was a poor time to air this episode.

Rating: 7

Dale’s wife Nancy doesn’t often get made the central character of an episode and this was really the only thing that made this episode seem a little unusual. We’ve all known Nancy to be a little crazy at times, but I wasn’t expecting her to become as ambitious as she turned out to be when the opportunity to work in the big city of Dallas.

While Nancy had her eyes on the big prize of being the sole anchor at a big affiliate in Dallas, her husband Dale was in all sorts of trouble back in Arlen. Dale has always been a conspiracy nut and often looks to the future. So it fit the character nicely when he was shown fitting his house and garage with window air conditioners, trying to prepare his body for the extreme cold the next ice age would bring about.

Sure enough, Dale overloaded the electric system in the house and was forced to “borrow” electricity from the Hill family, only to be nailed by a book courtesy of Bobby.

It all came together quite nicely considering the relative poor quality in recent King of the Hill episodes. Still, the show hasn’t made me burst out laughing in quite a while. This has been a sore spot for this series for some time though.

Rating: 7

After realizing she is not hip anymore, Peggy finds herself examining her life and where she stopped paying attention to trends. All fingers point to when she had Bobby, even if she doesn’t realize it. A chance encounter with the queen of all things hip lands Peggy in a spot where she’s around people who are always in the know.

This episode wasn’t just about Peggy, however. The ‘queen of all things hip’ had a daugher that Bobby really liked, but that didn’t last long when he and Peggy showed up to her birthday party in horrible clothes.

As soon as I saw what they were wearing, I got a knot in my stomach. It’s insane how stupid these two were. They weren’t dressed appropriately for the occasion; it was embarrassing and sad at the same time.

While Peggy and Bobby were off doing their thing, Hank was trying to check out a new restaurant named The Arlen Barn. It had a barn-like atmosphere to it which I’m sure a lot of guys would like. But Hank is always a guy who likes his privacy (much like me) and was turned off by the way the tables were set up.

There were a few tables that lined the walls, but those were always full. He had to sit at the community table, one massive table which ran down the middle of the restaurant. People were gossiping, changing diapers, you name it. Hank was understandably disappointed by that, but he just couldn’t get over that great meatloaf sandwich they served. Heck, he even paid a friend to pick one up for him.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this wasn’t the most original story to put forth. Even though there wasn’t anything particularly funny in Hank’s story, I frankly liked his better. I can certainly empathize with what he was going through.

Rating: 5.5

As I was watching this episode, I tried to think of where I’ve seen this story or something close to it and now that I’ve had time to ponder the question, I’d have to point to another (former) Fox show, Married With Children. I swear Al Bundy had something similar happen, just without the broken nose stuff.

I wasn’t the least bit surprised by Hank’s concern about hurting his nose again or fearing losing once again. That being said, this episode wasn’t very funny and it was made all the worse when the story became predictable.

Considering the fact that this is the final season of King of the Hill, I was expecting something more this year, but it really does appear that it’s time to end the series. The show’s writers have clearly run out of anything funny to do.

Rating: 5