1x12 Plastic White Female

This one was a slow-starter, but still pretty damn good. I tend to bristle at the suggestion that this show is boring, but especially in its first season, there's a very leisurely sense of pacing to it that makes you want the show to get to the fireworks factory. That said, the major conflict and the comedy are on point. Luann's story, involving a Paper Chase-esque beauty school professor and her final exam is an entertaining setup, and the way it resolves with Hank, semi-begrudgingly helping his niece and earning her a passing grade was sweet, and worked nicely as a capper to the two stories in the episode.

But while it took a little while to get going, the story of Bobby learning to feel more comfortable around girls by romancing Luann's mannequin head was just weird enough to make you feel for Bobby, who's clearly intimidated by the fairer sex and using a safe alternative to (apparently successfully) work up his courage. But the key to the whole plot is Peggy and Hank's reactions. Peggy's umbilical cord-like babying and Hank's overeagerness to push Bobby out of the nest collide perfectly, and their responses to the discovery that he was kissing a mannequin, from Hank's very deliberate announcements that he'll be entering Bobby's room, to Peggy's plan to move to Berlin, are the peak of the episode.

And yet there's something very true to the episode, as there is in the best of King of the HIll, about Bobby's real first kiss coming from Connie, which he doesn't stress about because Connie is too comfortable to feel like a "real" girl, the kind who seem so scary in his middle school hallway nightmares. The first season of King of the Hill is, at times, a little too relaxed in how it slow-releases its plots and beats, but there's also a truth to it, a resonant genuineness in the way that kids view each other and parents handle crises, that makes it feel legitimate and even hilarious despite the episode's pace.