Recap / King Of The Hill S 5 E 10 Yankee Hankee

While applying for a Texas Native license plate, Hank discovers that not only was he not born in Texas, he was born in New York City (a city he often rags on and shows disdain for). Meanwhile, Cotton revives an old scheme with his war buddies to assassinate Fidel Castro.

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Tropes:

• An Aesop: You are defined by your actions, not where you came or were born from.
• All Just a Dream: The original ending to "Lucky's Wedding Suit" had Hank say this episode was just a dream Bill had after eating at a Hungarian restaurant.
• Big Rotten Apple: Hank names the trope while on the phone with Tilly. It generally sums up his feelings on the place.
• Blatant Lies: Anyone who knows Cotton can tell from the start that his story of a romantic trip to New York at Tilly's request is bunk. When Hank confronts his mom about this, he immediately notes it.
  Hank: Well, then one of you is lying!
  Cue Beat and disbelieving stares from Bobby and Peggy
  Hank: Ah Hell, I know it's him...
• Canon Discontinuity: An unused scene in the Series Fauxnale "Lucky's Wedding Suit", it would have been revealed this episode was a vivid dream Bill had after having some bad food.
• Everyone Has Standards: Hank catches up with Cotton and his buddies just as they get ready to take their boat to Cuba and assassinate Fidel Castro. During their confrontation, Cotton punches Hank, knocking him into the water. After a while, when Hank doesn't come up, Stinky comments that Hank's been under the water for a while. Cotton tells Fatty to take care of him, to which Stinky takes it as a Deadly Euphemism before grabbing an assault rifle and firing into the water. An appalled Cotton tells him to stop and jump in and save Hank. Fortunately, Hank was under the boat during the gunfire removing the spark plug to foil their plans.
• Everything Is Online: Dale finds Hank's birth certificate on a website called www.hankhill.com.
• Foreshadowing: While plastered off of tequila, Hank confesses to Cotton that he's always wanted to tell his boss (Buck Strickland) what he really thinks of him. Hank (even more drunk) actually does so in season 13's "What Happens at the National Propane Gas Convention in Memphis..."
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: After Hank calls out Cotton on lying to him about being born in New York, Cotton seemingly feels remorse about keeping it from Hank and takes Hank out alongside his buddies and show him a good time and make him feel like a Texan. But Cotton does all this to set Hank up as a patsy when Cotton ties him up and leaves him so he and his buddies can go assassinate Fidel Castro.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Cotton's refusal to offer his ready-to-deliver wife any type of protection against the heat at Yankee Stadium, not even a cup of water, ends up directly jackknifing his plan to assassinate Castro when she goes into labor then and there and her scream distracts Cotton's potentially-perfect shot.
• Loophole Abuse: Peggy attempts to invoke this, claiming that since Hank was legally dead under the water, he could be considered to be "reborn" in Texas, and thus still be considered a Texan.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Hank gets over his existential crisis when he realizes that many of the Americans who perished at the Alamo weren't originally born in Texas, either, but are still seen as Texas heroes, anyway.
• Properly Paranoid: After finding out Hank's true heritage, Dale pokes fun at him by putting a New York sticker on Hank's truck, which he angrily removes. Dale being, well, Dale knews this was gonna happen and hides in Hank's truck just so he can put another sticker just as Hank leaves.
• Serious Business: Hank takes his Texan heritage very seriously, and wears it proudly. The moment he finds out he was actually born in New York, New York, he wonders if his entire life has been a lie. It's especially upsetting for him to like a bagel after trying one for the first time. It gets even worse when he finds out he was born in the women's restroom at Yankee Stadium due to a bungled assassination attempt on Fidel Castro's life orchestrated by Cotton.
• Special Guest: Ed Asner as Stinky and Jack Carter as Irwin Linker.
• Twofer Token Minority: Cotton describes a participant in his scheme to kill Castro as "Half-Mexican, half-Cuban. For this job, we'll be using the half that's Cuban."
• Unreliable Narrator: Cotton gives Hank a completely distorted version of events regarding the circumstances of his birth in New York.
• Wham Episode: In his attempt to look up his family tree, Hank learns in sheer horror that he wasn't born in Texas, but New York. Even worse, his mom gave birth to him in the women's bathroom of Yankee Stadium, all because she was dragged into Cotton's assassination attempt on Fidel Castro.