TVSquad

Damn, I almost missed this episode. Thanks to all these football games I had almost forgotten they sometimes show actually TV programs on FOX on Sunday nights. I was happy to catch a new episode, though it wasn't the best episode of the season.

Wanting to raise money for Arlen High's softball team, Hank and his own softball team, the Zephyrs, challenge a Harlem Globetrotters-like softball team to a game. Rather than act as foils to the other team as the superstars show off with fancy pitches and ball tricks, Hank decides they can challenge these greats to a real game of baseball. The fact that the team he and his crew of portly, beer-drinking buddies are up against have won the last two hundred games doesn't deter Hank even a little. Hank's "serious game" turns into a real let down for the crowd, and the other team, not wanting to be bested by amateurs, go on the attack and end up turning what should have been a game of fun and silly hijinks into a vicious slaughter that isn't all that funny.

Hank's unwavering belief that an analogue of the Globetrotters could be beaten if only the other team prepared more is hilarious, and it speaks volumes about Hank's character being so set in his ways he can't see what he's attempting is utter foolishness. Despite the promising set-up, the show fizzles out toward the end when Hank and his teammates harass the pitcher in his trailer to give up the money he won and donate it to Arlen High like he was supposed to. The show kept it's momentum throughout, but ended in a kind of shrug. Still, there was enough promise in even this sub-par episode to prove that King of the Hill, even when it isn't very good, is still pretty good.