My favorite thing about King of the Hill is when Hank gives a nod.

The setup is almost always the same. In the last few seconds of a scene or episode, as Hank parts ways with someone, he pauses to give a nod.

Hank never speaks during a nod. Each nod is executed in loud, resounding silence.

Hank’s nod, a spiritual bow.

Both characters part ways, usually to never to see each other again.

My first impression of this gesture was that it’s comedy. The moment clearly means a lot to Hank. He’s vulnerable, and shows a level of respect that borders on superfluous. It’s the cheesiest of cheese. A punchline in itself.

Instruction manual to bestowing a Hank Hill bow:

1. Look at the other person in the eyes with a warm embrace [2 seconds]

2. Make the nod down twice as long as the nod up [1 second]

After years of reflecting on the nod as comical and superficially deep, I’ve found it to be the opposite. While simple, it is far-reaching. It is the stuff comprising possibly the most ambitious scene of any series to date.

Exhibit A: The ebb of Hank’s smile

Hank’s nod strikes a warm yet poignant balance. His eyes are smiling, but he isn’t. It’s uncanny and I’ve always wondered why.

Hank is meditating. He sees himself in the other person, and at the same time, laterally reflects on the paradox of individualism. Hank Hill channels something much deeper than respect. He embodies something — he embodies everything.

In that moment, Hank reflects on the infinitely small dense piece of energy all matter sprang from. He remembers we are comprised of this energy. Hank knows we are much less further removed from each other than our mammalian brains evolved to make us believe. Hank recalls that Einstein considered this level of individualism an “optical delusion” of our consciousness.

Hank viscerally feels the atoms that comprise him recycling with his external environment. His atoms mingle with other atoms. He knows he is physiologically a different individual than he was a brief second ago. His atoms flush out and replenish every moment of his life.

While we’re an extension of the same energy, Hank understands life is reduced to quantum probabilities. “‘Everything happens for a reason’, in that quarks randomly manifested into people, who decide to attribute reason to everything” Hank’s nod says. While we’re derived from the same source of infinitely dense energy, the way life actually unfolds is absurd (as 2016 taught us). Hank channels the absurd, and embraces it.

Chaos Rules Everything Around Us, Hank’s nod implicitly says. Anything can happen to anyone. But at least the chaos unfolds from the same source. We all arguably have a stake in the same game. Together, we’re all in the same proverbial red pickup truck, on the same proverbial road.

Hank says goodbye to his friend Hal, for the last time.

Hank’s nod seems at first like a self-enclosed sign-off. The characters usually do not meet again. Yet, Hank knows he still might see the other person.

Part of their atoms may comprise him one day.

“Existence is beautiful, because it is fleeting. Embrace the ephemerality of the cosmos.”

-Hank Hill

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