King of the Hill Revival Makes Welcome Change to Bill

King of the Hill returned with a brand new season of episodes earlier this month, and with its new revival series has made a welcome change for Bill Dauterive heading into the future. Bill was undoubtedly the most tragic figure in the original King of the Hill broadcast run. Revealed to be a football star who served in the military, his life had gone massively downhill in the years since thanks to falling into a pit of depression as a result of a messy divorce. A divorce that he never quite recovered from even as the original show came to an end.

It helped to add to King of the Hill’s dose of realism that Bill was spending years trying to become a better version of himself, but it was then revealed in the revival that he was actually much worse off than ever. Fans even thought he died before heading into the new revival season, only for the episodes to show that he wasn’t much better off. But thankfully as of the end of the new King of the Hill season is finally showing that Bill is moving on from that divorce once and for all.

Bill Moves on From Lenore In One Big Way

Many of Bill’s key episodes in the original King of the Hill series dealt with the fact that he was very depressed following his divorce from his ex-wife Lenore. Though the clues fans have been given about her revealed Lenore to not be a great partner in the first place, losing this marriage ended up sending Bill into a years long spiral that he’s still recovering from. In the King of the Hill Season 14 episode, “Peggy’s Fadeout,” however, Bill revealed he was making great strides before the COVID-19 pandemic ended up setting him back.

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Because while he was initially revealed to have been homebound for the past few years, Bill ended up making friends with Brian Robertson’s cousin and a barbershop where he was able to vent a little about his sad life. Though he ultimately deflected all of this towards Hank, and lied about being married to Peggy, this was something that helped Bill get back to a better sense of self. One that we see immediately payoff in the next episode when he ends up burning his old wedding album and burying more of his Lenore memories once and for all.

What Does This Mean for Bill?

In the King of the Hill Season 14 episode, “Any Given Hill-Day,” Rainey Street ends up burning all of the books that Peggy had gathered together in the hopes of starting a neighborhood book club due to the bed bugs they were spreading. One shot sees Bill throwing his own book into the fire, only for it to reveal that he’s burning his old wedding album. He’s continuing to move forward from his past, and all of these years separating him from that traumatic moment means he’ll have a brighter future moving forward.

He’s still very much the same Bill as ever like seen when he tells Kahn divorced life is going to get much worse just an episode later, but this is a great sign for Bill to come. He has friends and a support system in his life (even if it was built on lives), and with it has started on the road to real emotional recovery. Which ultimately will be a major victory for Bill that he never got with the original series.