All right, after all that father-son bonding and aging anxiety, it’s time for some good old-fashioned King of the Hill high jinks! “New Ref in Town” does manage to get in a couple of sweet character beats, plus a bit of additional backstory about Hank’s time in Saudi Arabia, but mostly it’s a classic sitcom romp grafted onto the revival’s new status quo. And nothing says “new status quo” like Hank “Soccer Is for European Ladies” Hill name-dropping Lionel Messi and executing a perfect push pass without spilling a drop of Alamo.

The alley’s status quo, however, hasn’t changed, save the presence of Luke Jr. and reluctant AYSO ref Boomhauer having to pull “stepdad duty, man.” But he and Bill and Dale are still clinging to their disdain for the beautiful game. Bill bemoans that “we’re losing some of our best sports kids to soccer,” fretting that litres of milk and scones are next. But the more “perceptive” — scare quotes intended — Dale is immediately concerned that the sport has claimed someone else, and it’s the guy who wants to join Boomhauer at Luke’s game so he can check out the new St. Augustine turf (which is admittedly a pretty good cover story for Hank).

Of course, this being Dale, those suspicions are revealed to be about something beyond just a friend broadening his horizons; indeed, he seems unfazed that Big Scone has already gotten to Bill. He’s too focused on the “fact” that Hank has been turned into a spy by Mohammed bin Salman’s secret police while he was in Saudi Arabia, a transformation Bill finds even scarier than Hank turning into a werewolf. Dale agrees that would be preferable, since he has experience killing a werewolf — or at least a really big dog.

Once Dale’s theory is established, a disengaged Boomhauer gets literally kicked out of the game, and Hank volunteers to fill in as ref — because he loves rules, not soccer, okay?? — it’s pretty clear where this story line is headed, so let’s take a timeout to hop over to Bobby’s side of the episode. “New Ref in Town” doesn’t strain to interweave its two plotlines, giving Bobby a stand-alone B-story that has nothing to do with soccer or secrets. But as with Hank’s story line, it uses an established character trait to create tension between the person we knew in the original seasons and whom he has become in this revival. In Bobby’s case, that’s his niceness, which Connie worries will undermine his effort to buy a used car from the local institution that’s been running the same ads since they were kids. But as the co-owner of Robata Chane, Bobby believes he now has what it takes to deal with Bronco Barry, businessman to businessman.

He doesn’t, but before we get to that, we must discuss the second turn in Hank’s story line, which is that Peggy approves of her husband’s new secret side gig as a youth-soccer ref. Like, really approves. Maybe it’s because she hasn’t seen his calves in a decade, maybe it’s because her dad would have considered him a bad boy, or maybe it’s just because these two have always had a penchant for wholesome role-play, but regardless, Hank now has a second reason to love soccer.

And Dale now has a second asset to surveil, both “the Manchurian candidate and his potentially complicit wife,” the latter half of whom Bill is only too happy to assist with. He clearly put a lot of effort into his plan of making Peggy choose between apple pie or falafel and hummus — after getting nothing but delivery since the pandemic, Bill appears to have rebounded hard into cooking and baking. But just as MBS overlooked that Texans hate soccer, Bill overlooked the important detail that Peggy would never eat anything that’s been in his home. Luckily for Bill, she does accept the old Tupperware he is returning, which Dale has already bugged.

Given that said Tupperware has been in Bill’s home for over a quarter-century, Peggy promptly puts it in a sink of soapy water, from where it can pick up just enough garbled intel for Dale to completely misinterpret the news Hank shares with Peggy: He’s been asked to ref a high-school soccer game at the biggest stadium in town. But despite Peggy’s ho yeah of approval as she tries to lead Hank to the bedroom, he’s apprehensive about outing himself as a soccer lover to the whole town — including the mayor, whose son is playing in the game — but most especially his friends. Peggy reassures him that he’s evolved past the alley guys and their outdated prejudices toward the Youth, and Hank owes it to those kids to make sure the rules are enforced. But Dale’s not-quite-dead bug doesn’t catch any of that, so “Hank’s going to kidnap the mayor!” it is!

While we’re on the subject of miscommunication, let’s return to Bobby, now the not-so-proud owner of a used horse. Despite walking into the car dealership with a folder full of research and the necktie Hank told Peggy to tell him he should wear — from across the house and definitely not while he was in “the afterglow” — Bobby got out-businessed by the wily Bronco Barry, who plays the nice kid and his affection for those old commercials like a fiddle. There’s perhaps some observation to be made here about Bobby’s nostalgia for the programming of his past blinding him to what’s happening in the present, but all that really matters is that there’s now a horse with a giant red bow on it parked in front of Bobby and Joseph’s apartment. It’s a great sight gag when we first smash-cut to Connie cracking up over the confirmation that she was right about Bobby being too nice, and it remains a great sight gag when Switzer is stealing coconut shrimp from unsuspecting passersby.

But it becomes something a little more than just a great sight gag when Connie interrupts Bobby and Joseph’s bickering over how to get rid of the horse and suggests they call John Redcorn for help. After lightly roasting his co-host’s son’s roommate for falling for the oldest trick in the book, the “Paleface Pawnoff,” John Redcorn strikes a bargain with Bobby that’s advantageous to everyone: He’ll keep Switzer on his land, Joseph will drop by to keep an eye on the horse he’s grown so attached to, and if he ends up spending some quality time with his mom’s ex-masseuse while he’s there, hey, that’s what I call a nice deal.

Hank also strikes a deal of sorts with Dale, though it’s tough to characterize as nice when it involves him getting kidnapped from the stadium, drugged with chloroform, and threatened with a “truth serum” from the internet that is making semi-paralyzed test subject Bill feel “lonely and scared” (see, it works). This is a lot, even for Dale — I guess he’s evolved, too — but Hank knows the rules of engagement with his friend even better than he knows the rules of soccer. So he double-bluffs Dale into believing he’s actually spying on the Saudis for America, just in time for him and Peggy to race back to the stadium before the kids have to forfeit the game.

Unfortunately, he was gone long enough that Boomhauer had to step back into the role he abdicated at the top of the episode and proceeded to turn soccer into football, and also wrestling, and also some kind of mixed martial arts. It’s a fairly absurd development that the episode attempts to sell by having Peggy point out to Hank how much the crowd and players alike are enjoying this not-soccer, but I’m not buying it any more than Hank. The “soccer wishes it was football” ending didn’t really work back in “Three Coaches and a Bobby,” and it works even less when we’re meant to believe a varsity high-school team has been playing a sport they actually hate for years. But it serves nicely to reinforce Hank’s own love of the game, and especially its offside rule, as genuine, even if he has to go back to keeping it secret. In the end, Dale may have prevented Hank from coming out to Arlen as the true soccer lover he’s become, but at least he indirectly helped his friend develop a new secret identity to keep the game going for Hank and Peggy: international superspy. Let’s just pray Dale’s out of chloroform.

Musings

• One way in which Hank’s attitudes have definitely not evolved: He still doesn’t think women should shave their heads and dye the rest, which makes them look like fruit.

• Sound the Brian Robertson klaxon! Good to see him outside the alley, and nice of him to write Hank’s epitaph for him: “You knew the rules and didn’t cry.”

• Our first time seeing the inside of Bill’s house since the premiere indicates he seems to have mostly pulled his life back together. (We really glossed right over that weight gain and loss, didn’t we? Frankly, I’m fine with that!) It’s surprisingly tidy in there, with more books on display than I would have expected, but the multiple dead plants are very on-brand.

• Over in Dale’s basement, his surveillance setup has been updated with an array of video monitors, including one that appears to be pointed at Joseph and Bobby’s apartment. I would wonder if he noticed the horse and/or John Redcorn dropping by, but this is Dale, so I’m sure he didn’t.

• Stephen Root gets to show off his range by voicing Bronco Barry, who’s a distinctly different flavor of pitiful wretch than Bill. I also enjoyed the extra mustard he put on Bill saying scone in that opening scene.

• Texans, please weigh in: Does the universal soccer hatred feel even remotely authentic, or does this comedic conceit also need to evolve?

 The only thing more shocking than Hank’s love for the game of soccer is the lengths Dale will go to make sense of it.