There are a number of characters who have yet to make their return to King of the Hill with the debut of its new revival series, but there’s still one major absence that the revival needs to address with its next season. King of the Hill has returned for a new series of episodes set nearly a decade’s worth of time following the events of the original series broadcast, and with it has introduced new takes on each of the familiar characters as they have each aged that much in that span of time. So there’s a whole new status quo to work through.
King of the Hill has been working through a brand new status quo as the episodes released though Hulu thus far have been updating fans on how everyone has been doing since the original series. But while there are some notable names that fans are still hoping to see return in some form with the new episodes, there’s still the fact that Ladybird has likely passed that still needs to be addressed in some fashion so the series can properly retire a huge part of Hank’s life in the original.
King of the Hill Needs to Address Ladybird’s Absence in Next Season
King of the Hill takes place at least eight or nine years after the events of the original series, and the new episodes reveal that Hank and Peggy have been living in Saudi Arabia for the last chunk of that duration. While the overall timeline for Arlen, Texas is still very much in flux with how some of the characters are varying in ages, this much time passing since that original series unfortunately likely means that not all of the characters seen in the original run can actually come back in the new episodes.
There had been one character who was confirmed to have died since the original King of the Hill series as Kahn addressed his late mother in “Kahn-scious Uncoupling,” but that was the only mention of a character’s fate during the time skip. With Hank and Peggy moving back into their old house, it’s even clearer that Ladybird is going to be nowhere to be seen. She was already a very old dog in the original show, and unfortunately will not have survived another near decade. It might even be the kind of loss that sparked Hank to move to Saudi Arabia in the first place.
How Can King of the Hill Address Ladybird?
It’s not like King of the Hill has avoided acknowledging death within its show as we’ve seen in the past, but something of this magnitude might be a bit tougher to actually accomplish with the shorter season length of this new era. The revival can’t dedicate an entire episode to Hank dealing with the loss of Ladybird, but there’s a way to do so even with that quicker pacing. In this case, there just needs to be a shot of Hank acknowledging the loss. There weren’t even any pictures of Ladybird seen in the backgrounds.
Hank looking at a picture of Ladybird, or maybe even seeing an urn might be morose for such a series like this, but it would go a long way. Then there’s the much funnier route to take, and have Hank and Peggy getting a new dog that’s the complete opposite of the calm and loving pet that Ladybird once was. It’s the perfect kind of chaotic element that would further shake up Hank’s life, and even just noting the absence would be a big deal for fans who miss seeing Ladybird after all these years.
