Luanne and Lucky are getting married and Luanne’s pregnant. That’ll be a great plot line next season. King of the Hill is better than most animated series at ongoing storylines and staying frozen in time at the same time. And Peggy has morphed into a cruel bitch! She’s gotten a lot less likable over the years.
So where did Lucky come from and how long has he been around? I rarely catch the new episodes, but mostly watch reruns of the older episodes. Since I got Tivo, though, I’ve caught a few of the new episodes, but only one other one with Lucky in it (the one where he’s trying to get Bobby some fresh corn chips). So what’s up with him?
I’m pretty sure Lucky was introduced in the season 8 episode “The Redneck on Rainey Street”, when Kahn gets disillusioned with overachieving and decides to “go redneck”. The following season he was seen playing guitar in John Redcorn’s band Big Mountain Fudgecake. He’s been around a bit more this past season (10), when he started going out with Luanne. I don’t recall the episode where the relationship began…it might have just come out of nowhere…or it was lost in the jumble…this “season” was a jumble of leftover episodes and some where seemingly aired out of order. It was a major surprise that Fox brought the show back for next year.
The ending wherer Peggy kicked him was hysterical. I love this show. I need to get the DVD’s of the prior seasons.
I think I’m starting to hate this show.
I used to love it, then like it. Maybe if they kill off Peggy I’ll like it again. What a hateable character!
My Mother-in-Law is actually far worse than Peggy Hill. Very, eerielly (she’ll correct that with a RED PEN) similar, but far worse. One of the most hateful, vindictive racist people I’ve ever met. And in charge of YOUR (and mine, seldom but unfortunatly) children!
I actually missed the last few minutes of the episode. Somebody clue me in, please. I saw right up to where Peggy asks Bobby for a cold towel, just after Lucky gets the reject.
As far as Luanne goes- yeah, I’da hit it, too!
Gatopescado, sorry about your MIL. The problem with this show is that they changed the character of Peggy. When the show started Peggy was a smarter version of Luann, but with a heart of gold. She of course thought she was a little smarter than she really was, but was a good mom and aunt, as well as sub teacher.
Somewhere along the line - maybe that episode when she wrote Bobby’s essays and destroyed Bill’s flag, or the one where she lied and claimed she was a nun to teach at the Catholic school - she became a power-hungry, conniving, black-hearted bitch. Actually, that’s the role that Cotton played. We don’t see him anymore, but if Peggy had that disposition toward him it would make sense.
All the other characters stayed pretty much the same. Luann used to be a lot smarter - in the pilot you see her fixing Hank’s truck.
She asks for a bourbon as well. Lucky says he fails the GED and to cheer him up Luanne announces that she’s pregnant. Hank wants him to marry Luanne but Lucky refuses because it would go against his code to marry her without his GED. Later, Peggy and Hank go to Lucky’s place. Peggy confesses that she sabotaged Lucky but he refuses to believe her. Hank wonders how any of Lucky’s ancestors married each other if none of them had their high school diplomas. Lucky explains that it wasn’t part of their codes of honor, that they had different points in their codes (one refused to marry until he spoke perfect French–he never did; another refused to marry until he was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world but he couldn’t take a punch). It turns out they all had shotgun weddings, so at the end Hank stands behind Lucky holding a shotgun while he proposes to Luanne, who accepts. Lucky says that Hank has to complete the process by kicking him in the ribs. Hank refuses, and as Lucky starts to entreat him Peggy lays Lucky out with a foot to the sternum. The end.
I hate Lucky.
I can’t make up my mind whether how I feel about him – as I said, I’ve only seen him in this episode and the corn chip one…
Frankly, I kind of liked him, on the one hand. I know he’s supposed to be the classic hillbilly, but he also reminded me of a certain kind of stoner hippy that I grew up around in Northern California – good natured and sweet tempered, but pretty much useless. Their uselessness aside, I always kind of liked those stoner hippies… But I’m sympathetic with the alternate view, too – I certainly wouldn’t want my child (or pseudo-child) to marry that type of person.
I got the feeling (again, from just the one episode – Hank and Lucky didn’t interact in the corn chip episode, I don’t think) that Hank is similarly conflicted. He seems to like, and on some level, respect Lucky. But if Luann marries a bum and has a baby, they’re never going to get out of Hank’s den!
I’m surprised at the fact that I don’t, but, well, I don’t hate him. His love for Luanne seems genuine and that’s cool.
I hate, hate, HATE Peggy.
Last season, episode nine. Lucky and the rest of the Belcher’s Grove crew come back to Rainey Street in an attempt to lure Kahn back into the redneck lifestyle. Luanne comes outside, sees the shiny rims on Lucky’s pickup truck, and is immediately smitten.
Peggy screwing Lucky over in his attempt at a GED in this season’s finale is understandable (though not acceptable) because she really does hate Lucky’s guts. She wants Luanne to better herself and succeed in life instead of sinking back into her old trailer park world. She knows that will never happen with Lucky around.
I don’t think that Luanne has gotten dumber. She fixes cars in a couple of later episodes, too. It seems to be the only thing that she’s good at.
Posted something like this earlier but my browser ate it…
Luanne’s always been about the same level of loopy/stupid. The gag with her fixing the truck (repeated in a number of episodes) is that she’s a tragedy as a beautician but very mechanically inclined. She’d be very successful as a mechanic but because she’s a girl and gets no support for being mechanical she feels the need to go to beauty school, and none of the characters seem to notice or be able to point her toward what would be a genuinely good job/career for her. What’s changed is that they’ve moved her away from being mechanical to being a better hairdresser, which kind of sucks. The last I knew of her having a job was when she and Bill opened a barbershop together, although it’s unclear to me how Bill can work in a barber shop while still being an Army barber. What would’ve been funny is if they’d had her open some kind of combination salon/auto parts/repair shop. “Yeah…we can change your oil but you should really do something about those oily patches next to your nose too.”
Luanne also was on the verge of starting a pool-cleaning business, which she seemed to have a natural aptitude for. But they keep nudging her back into beautician school, where she’s a klutz.
I think it’s a commentary on rigid gender roles. Luanne would be better off doing something less stereotypically feminine, and Bobby would be better off if Hank accepted him for what he is and stopped trying to push him into doing more stereotypically masculine activities.
Peggy’s character is the biggests love/hate aspect of this show. If you’ve watched it from the begining Peggy really is the same as she’s always been.
Peggy is borderline bipolar. She’s both incredibly selfish and arrogant yet at the same time incredibly insecure and self-less. Hank knows this well and deals with it accordingly ("…grab a beer and let it burn…").
As likeably as Lucky is, and to some degree I think he is, he’s still an ignorant, jobless, talent-less, future-less, sponging lowlife. And Peggy knows that that is exactly the kind of person Luanne’s mother was and that if it weren’t for Peggy’s brother’s genes and her & Hank’s guidance Luanne wouldn’t have a chance. So I can’t argue with Peggy’s decision to sabotage Lucky. She didn’t do it unconscionably. She was well aware Hank was right, that it was a totally wrong thing to do even to Lucky. But where her erstwhile-daughter (Luanne) is concerned, I can’t really blame her.
And I found it perfectly within her character.
“erstwhile” means former
Sorry, I meant pseudo…
Well, I just checked my DVR and, serendipitously, found the Rednecks of Rainey Street episode in which Lucky first appeared. It must have been replayed this week. Anyway, I watched it and Lucky seems a good deal less likeable on his first appearance… Kahn looked pretty sexy in those sideburns, though.
Arlen–home of the shiny pickup rims. 