Guacamole

S1 E11: King of the Ant Hill

King of the Hill, 1997.

In King of the Ant Hill, we are presented with a classic morality tale, wrapped in Kentucky bluegrass and doused liberally with Roundup.

This is a story about betrayal. This is a story about lawn care. This is a story about love—specifically, Hank Hill’s love for a verdant patch of St. Augustine sod and his increasingly tenuous relationship with reality.

We open on a rare moment of male vulnerability: the men of Rainey Street evaluating each other’s lawns with the forensic scrutiny of 1950s housewives inspecting pies at the county fair. Kahn smugly unveils a lawn that shimmers like an emerald in a Big & Rich music video. Bill tries to reassure Hank that everyone will be drunk at the Cinco de Mayo block party and incapable of noticing turf variance. This, of course, is not comfort. This is an insult wrapped in hope.

But Hank has a plan. He will restore his lawn to glory with the sacred, if questionably licensed, aid of Dale Gribble: exterminator, lunatic, and amateur entomologist. Dale offers one final spray. Hank declines. It’s over. A professional breakup occurs on the front lawn, in full view of the boys. Dale pleads for dignity. Hank denies it. Their friendship collapses under the weight of lawn ethics.

Elsewhere, Peggy receives a crisis call from a friend who believes, in the year of our Lord 1997, that guacamole can be made from lima beans and Ritz crackers. Peggy, in one of the episode’s most emotionally clarifying moments, does not hesitate. “Bethany, it does not matter if your avocados are hard,” she says, “life is hard. You cannot make authentic guacamole out of lima beans and Ritz crackers.” It is a sentence so clear, so brutal, so morally certain, it should be read aloud in civics class.

Back in suburbia’s green theater of war, Hank installs a new Raleigh St. Augustine lawn at $1.25 per square foot, declaring it a “flag” representing his values: propane, discipline, and the superiority of monoculture. It is lush. It is pristine. Children giggle in it. Adults touch it sensually. It is not long for this world.

Fire ants arrive. Hank, in his panic, turns to a more “natural” solution: Eco-kill, a form of biological warfare that involves wasp-like flies injecting eggs into the heads of live ants until their skulls fall off. (Yes, this aired on Fox.) For a moment, it feels like a miracle. And then the ants regroup.

Eventually, Hank, broken and barefoot, is forced to do what he swore he’d never do again: ask Dale for help. Dale, now fully operating from a place of personal revenge and insect-based fantasy, accepts. The poison is administered. The lawn dies anyway. What blooms instead is something rarer: emotional honesty between middle-aged men in Oakley wraparounds.

But it’s not over.

Because Dale, it turns out, planted the ants.

Let me say that again: Dale Gribble, exterminator, friend, and lunatic, intentionally planted fire ants on Hank’s new lawn at 3:00 a.m., then lovingly drew a map of it like a crime scene investigator with deep-seated emotional issues and a pencil sharpener.

Hank chases him. Words are exchanged. Bobby is caught in the crossfire, covered in ants, and in a final act of redemption, Dale offers his body to the swarm. “They’ve been waiting to get a piece of me for fifteen years,” he whispers. He survives. Their friendship, like Hank’s lawn, is beaten but not broken.

The episode ends not in triumph, but in acceptance. A gravel lawn. A margarita mispronunciation. A final toast to a friendship that somehow survived biological sabotage. As Hank puts it: “I especially want to thank Dale Gribble. Without his paranoid and, well, hateful nature, I never would’ve learned what kind of beating a friendship can survive.”

And that, dear reader, is the heart of King of the Hill: a love letter to the slow death of masculine pride, punctuated by lawnmower engine sounds and deep emotional repression.

Happy Cinco de Mayo. Please check your yard for ants. And for God’s sake, use avocados.

Make it! Guacamole from Love & Lemons.