What say you?
Can’t she be both, like the late–OK, OK.
I definitely see a lot of insecurity there, but the fact that she never admits to her flaws, but covers them up by going further and further makes her sort of moronic. Like the ep where she supervises a field trip to Mexico and accidentally takes home a Mexican girl because she misunderstands the girl’s Spanish. She never admits to the fact that she’s not that good and then she just gets in deeper and deeper.
Arrogant moron, mostly. She’s not exactly evil, but she’s pretty self-absorbed.
Totally both.
I think she can be both, which is why despite how annoying she is, she’s one of my all time favorite television characters. You can see she has a deep thread of insecurity in several episodes, like when she’s pitching for Hank’s softball team and she starts throwing clunkers when she thinks Hank lost faith in her. Or the episode where they go back to Montana and she’s so hurt/angry by her mother’s complete dismissal of her life. On the other hand, she can be unbelievably arrogant and moronic, like in the aforementioned ep about the Mexican girl, or when she wrote Bobby’s essay and became enraged that nobody was giving her credit for the A grade. Yet at other times, she shows signs of genuine intelligence, even brilliance.
Most of the characters on KotH are like that. Dale is both a completely paranoid conspiracy nut who genuinely believes the Government is dangerous and out to get him, and at the same time, so blindly trusting that his wife can have an affair under his nose for like 12 years.
My husband hates Peggy and has gotten to the point that he won’t even watch Peggy-centric episodes. He’d definitely vote arrogant moron.
Yeah, put me on the Peggy hate train. She was believable initially, but she annoyed the hell out of me after the Mexican kid on the bus episode.
A 32 post thread here on Peggy Hill. Put me on the both side. She always wants to do good, but is so self-absorbed and altogether dim, she ends up looking like an arrogant moron…sort like how a shy person can get mispegged as “stuck up”.
Arrogant moron. But since they have the balls to write a believable female with this quality, I find her boneheadedness kind of endearing.
arrogant do-gooder.
Take for instance, the episode where she got a job as a substitute teacher in a Catholic school. How a “do-gooder” would lie about being Catholic and teach kids incorrectly is beyond me. She sucks.
I think they thought it would be funny to take her character to zanier levels but she lost believability and really became a cartoon character. Compare that Peggy to the one that went to the Boggle tournament… much more likable and believable.
As a watcher from the very first to the very last (:() episodes, she was definitely both. Its just a matter of if one side seems more important (or annoying) to you.
Over the years I’ve found that this always seems to be the deciding factor in people either loving or absolutely hating the show, how they feel about Peggy!
“Well, at least you’re better than… Boggle-Playing Chicken?!”
I’m with salinqmind: arrogant do-gooder.
Sometimes, though, I do lean towards arrogant moron. I’m thinking of the scam PhD episode. She was really dumb enough to shell out her and Hank’s savings for some diploma in a can scheme? Yes, she does trick the guy in the end, but falling for the scheme to begin with? That’s like Nigerian scam dumb.
The Peggy episodes can bother me, but they aren’t as bad as the Bill episodes. They both work much better as background characters.
I think she’s the poster child for unskilled and unaware of it. She’s so unskilled, she can’t even see how incompetent she is.
Oh god, yes. The Bill episodes are just too depressing for words. I can’t stand them. It seems like almost every Christmas episode is an excuse for depressed Bill.
Well, I liked the one when he got with Laoma, Kahn’s mom, but of course we never saw her again.
There were some Bill episodes I liked. I liked the one where they went to visit his cousins in Louisiana and got sucked into a Tennessee Williams play, and also the episode he dated Ann Richards.
Arrogant Moron.
When Bobby cheats at Don’t Spill The Beans by shoving beans up his nose and has to be taken to the hospital, what’s Peggy’s reaction? It’s not “Oh than G-d my baby is okay now!” . It’s not “It’s wrong to cheat, Bobby.” . It’s ‘I guess this means I win the game.’ .
When Bobby breaks up with whatsername (Voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar only appears in one episode), the first thing Peggy says is ‘I guess your love WASN’T stronger than me and your fathers’, huh?’.
I love KOTH. I hate Peggy.
That one I liked, too, since it was pretty funny and it didn’t hinge on “Isn’t Bill PATHETIC?! LAUGH! Laugh at the LOSER!”
I don’t love Peggy but those moments I found rather funny because it’s so the opposite of a typical sitcom mom. The Sarah Michelle Gellar love interest in particular because Bobby’s whole, “Our love is stronger than yours” actually prompts a competitiveness in Peggy. Yeah, it does show her to be pathetic but the fact that she’s actually in competition with her son and later on tries to get Hank to hold hands in public to show Bobby up–it’s lame but I found it funny. I mean, if it happened in real life, it would be horrifying, but in sitcom land, I like it.
I think when those moronic Peggy moments stop becoming just moments and become entire episodes (trip to Mexico, PhD scam, etc.), then they’re too painful to watch.
I also did enjoy the episode where Hank and the others actually call Peggy on her BS, at the country musical festival. But in that episode, she actually is in the right because Randy Travis has stolen her song.
What Bill-centric episodes hinge on “Laugh at the LOSER!”? I think all of his episodes are well done with real depth and surprisingly touching. Like the one where he goes crazy because it’s Christmas and Lenore is gone and he gets better when he realizes he’s worth a “Dear John” letter and an explanation. Or when Hank gets fed up with all of Bill’s problems and then finds out that he has Bill’s name tattooed to his head and why he does.