"The Accidental Terrorist" is the two hundred-twenty-sixth episode of King of the Hill. It was first aired on March 2, 2008. The episode was written by Tim Croston and Chip Hall, and directed by Robin Brigstocke.
Summary[]
When Hank realizes that salesmen have been taking advantage of his gullibility, he tries to protest against this but is falsely blamed for bombing a car dealership.
Plot[]
Bobby is about to spend his hard-earned cash on a new video game system, but Hank disapproves, not because of the purchase but in trying to teach Bobby a lesson about business-customer loyalty. Bobby was about to make a bid at an online auction when Hank says if something goes wrong the seller will not come to fix it. When Peggy needs a new car, Hank insists they buy from Tom Hammond, his go-to salesman for 25 years. With her heart set on a convertible, Peggy begins the negotiation behind Hank's back and gets the price down considerably. Hank catches her and agrees to buy the convertible, provided he can make the deal himself. Tom jacks the price back up to sticker and tells Hank he is getting a deal. When Peggy discovers how much Hank paid, she realizes he has been swindled on every car he has ever bought. She tries to keep Hank from finding out, but he does and becomes disillusioned and depressed. When he confronts Tom on all the years of lies, Tom claims that he is a salesman and it is what he does.
To exact justice, Hank places flyers reading "Tom Hammond's World of Lies!" on the cars in Tom's lot early one morning. He is joined by a group of radical college students, one of whom he met in the copy shop the day before. As Hank drives away, the students blow up a number of cars. Hank is under investigation since he was the only person on the surveillance tapes—the students dressed in black and crawled on the ground—but Tom Hammond does not press charges. He tells Officer Brown that if Hank Hill looks someone in the eye and says he did not do something, then it means that he genuinely did not do it. The truth is Tom does not believe Hank's innocence, but knows Hank would fight the charges, which would mean bad publicity for Tom's dealership. Hammond says that he has had a good run from Hank selling multiple cars at sticker price; thus he should cut his losses right there. The episode ends with Hank taking Bobby to an electronics store to buy his gaming console. The manager of the electronics store realizes Hank is the alleged "ripoff bomber" and signals to the employee to cut the price for Bobby, fearing a similar problem at their store.
Characters[]
- Hank Hill
- Peggy Hill
- Bobby Hill
- Luanne Platter
- Dale Gribble
- Bill Dauterive
- Jeff Boomhauer
- Tom Hammond
- Alex
- Falcon
- Sparrow
- Charlie
- Mr. Draper (non-speaking)
- Officer Brown
- Frank
- Kahn Souphanousinphone
- Minh Souphanousinphone
- Nancy Gribble
- Abbie
- Chet Haddock
- Glen (non-speaking)
- Adams (non-speaking)
- Dr. Money (commercial)
- Ted Wassanasong (mentioned)
- Lucky Kleinschmidt (mentioned)
- Joseph Gribble (mentioned)
- Jerry Biddle (mentioned)
Stinger Quote[]
- Boomhauer: "Hank always seemed like a very quiet man, you know!"
Trivia[]
- An advertisement for Dr. Money appears while Hank is watching TV. This ad is central to the plot of the Season 10 episode "The Year of Washing Dangerously". The ad also appears in the Season 11 episode The Passion of the Dauterive".
- It is revealed that Tom Hammond is the man who sold Hank his first car, a "1970 Ford Maverick." Peggy's Buick, and his 1993 Ford Ranger.
- Peggy is shown to be able to speak Lao telling Minh, banxi kasae lay wan lap (Lao: ບັນຊີ ກະແສ ຫຼາຍ ວັນ ລັບ), this is also mutually intelligible in Thai in the spoken form (Thai: บัญชี กระแส หลาย วัน ลับ), which transliterates to “account, current (as in a stream flowing), many, day/date(s), secret”. Peggy may know something about Minh’s bank account receiving flow of money from secret dates.
- Peggy's new convertible shown in this episode is likely based off of a Chrysler Sebring Convertible (RT-22 generation). Her previous car was a 1982 Buick Regal.
- Although Hank was apparently unaware of the concept of sticker price, in the episode "Chasing Bobby" when Hank buys his new truck, Hank tells Bobby to pretend that he hates the new truck, implying that Hank was in fact aware of the concept of negotiation. However, it is possible that Hank also bought the truck at sticker price.
- Tom Hammond appears to be Hank's Go-to guy when it comes to buying cars, in the same episode "Chasing Bobby", Hank is seen buying his new truck "the Ford F-250" from Pickup truck heaven. Even Though it can be implied that in the flashback scenes, Hank has bought every other car that he and Peggy owned in the past from Hammonds Dealership.