TalKing of the Hill - Cotton's Plot
Added 2025-01-20 05:00:09 +0000 UTCTalKing of the Hill kicks off 2025 with the final installment of King of the Hill's first and only three-parter! After months of off-screen healing, Peggy is finally freed from her full body cast. But when lackluster physical therapy can't help her stand on her own two legs, she finds an unlikely friend a Cotton—who had to overcome a much greater disability. Prepare yourself to be moved and learn the recipe for jungle rice on this month's grave-worthy episode!
Comments
The naming formula with y’s on the end followed by “doc” reminds me of how ridiculous the names of the Teletubbies were. Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, and uhh Po lol it always felt disrespectful to Po
Mickey
2025-03-03 05:06:53 +0000 UTCI can maybe offer a little insight on the physical therapy discussion — I’m not a physical therapist but I work alongside them often as a personal trainer and an editor in that field. I definitely agree that the commentary in this episode is more about the US healthcare industry and the inadequate PT that insurance pays for/client overload for PTs; however, the “PT is easy”/stick-boy conversation reflects a big debate in the industry. “Old school” PTs do often tend to be very conservative in their approach and (in my non-PT opinion) this cautious approach can be ineffective or even counter-productive (there’s a thing called the noceobo effect, which is the opposite of the placeobo effect — basically when you think you’re fragile or that something is dangerous it makes it more likely for you to get insured or feel pain). A more contemporary approach to PT takes this, and how resilient and robust the human body is, along with the risks and drawbacks of not moving into account and tends to challenge patients more than the “old school” approach — which is almost certainly what a middle class woman in Texas would have gotten in the 90s in terms of PT. I don’t think this industry debate is what the writers were commenting on, but it would in real life likely have been a contributing factor to an ineffective therapy experience like the one depicted in this episode.
Kat Heagberg
2025-01-27 21:59:39 +0000 UTCI think Hank’s comments about Cotton being heroic just for even walking is pretty damn spot on. My dad’s pretty much the poster child for deadbeats, but he lost his leg in an accident 5 years ago and still plays music live to this very day - I have my issues with the man, but I cannot deny how much I appreciate that nothing has slowed him down. Sometimes we gotta take the lessons we can from those who can’t give enough.
Cody C.
2025-01-26 23:27:59 +0000 UTCI had a fairly minor surgery on a couple of torn ligaments. My PT was simple but it hurt like hell. I coincidentally met an older guy who had the same surgery and was showing the limited range of motion he has now, and that was a strong motivator to literally push through the pain to regain flexibility. Physical therapists will push you just to the breaking point if that's what it takes for your recovery. Mine was nice but not in a "take it easy" kind of way.
Matt Pearson
2025-01-24 12:41:33 +0000 UTCTo clarify, he spent a week at the hospital where he got the surgery to be sure everything went well and then was moved to his local hospital near his home for the rest of his stay. Medicare for seniors entitles anyone to 100 days in a swing bed in our state. However, he had to be discharged because the local hospital after a month because they had so little staff to even watch over him. It was a lot more stressful when he was brought back home because it's not as disability accessible and there were a lot more hazards.
SilkiePJ
2025-01-23 18:49:59 +0000 UTCI read your message and thought “he got to stay for over a month!” The hip fracture patients I see are usually with us for less than a week before they go to a skilled nursing facility for therapy, barring any other medical issues.
Shawn Frieler
2025-01-23 04:00:27 +0000 UTCI have wondered this for decades, thank you.
Shawn Frieler
2025-01-23 03:49:23 +0000 UTCWhich is also where the sentinel from X-Men gets his name from, and makes way more sense in that context. Good old Chris Claremont
Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag
2025-01-22 18:47:28 +0000 UTCI really hope the reboot remembers that Good Hank exists, because it's a shame to know he kind of disappears as the show goes on (I was NOT a regular watcher of it during its run). -- It's absolutely true that if Mike Judge thought physical therapy and the like was shitty not because of systemic issues but because of it being too soft or liberal, it would've been a twig boy type that Peggy is initially helped by, and I'm so glad it's not (even if the social commentary here is mostly implied rather than outright discussed).
Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag
2025-01-22 18:46:15 +0000 UTCBaby carriers in the 90s seemed to mostly function like a baby backpack. Current ones are usually designed to work both ways with infants who can't support their own head typically needing to be placed on the chest. Though when I had my first kid 10 years ago wraps were becoming the predominant method of carrying a baby over the old harness method and it feels like they have mostly taken over. I think the joke here is that Didi just forgot she had GH in her carrier, not that she's wearing it backwards.
Joe Hodgson
2025-01-21 22:18:59 +0000 UTCSpeaking of Bugs Bunny with telegrams, he’s also the reason we associate “nimrod” meaning idiot, at the time he was referencing a hunter from the Bible
Tricia
2025-01-21 20:40:04 +0000 UTCThe timing of this episode actually mirrors well with my own Cotton Hill style dad. A few months ago, he had broken his hip. He's 76, so we thought this would be the beginning of the end. He got surgery (hip surgery has advanced a lot in recent years) and stayed in hospitals for 1 1/2 months. In the hospital he would get physical therapy every single day, for about two hours. He had to unfortunately come back home despite what medicare promises because the lack of staffing in hospitals made it so they could not keep constant watch on him. Before my eyes, I watched him go from barley walking, to needing physical assistance, to using a walker, to using a cane, and now not always needing a cane within the process of 3 months. It's freaky miraculous but he had that old school drive from being an athlete to always push himself. Now on the other side of things, I do give slack to the nurses and PTs who gave him constant attention since they were all overworked and overburdened. What sucked is when he was brought back home, he pretty much had to do all the exercise on his own. Twice and then once a week, a PT would come to do a status report on him to test his strength and mobility, but they were always doing paperwork and had to stay on top of every change and medication. They eventually stopped coming on my dad's wishes, despite the fact he would lie about the level of pain and level of difficulty he had doing things around the house. I feel a bit for Ramsay because everyone is going to need different kinds of physical therapy at a ramping level of progression depending on how vulnerable they are. It can be incredibly stressful when people are that fragile and could end up in an even worse position if they fell again or over-exerted themselves. Henry and Bob did point out lots of the great subtle jokes here about Ramsay's attitude and the small progressions Peggy had made, but this was a very good example of a sitcom showing that recovery is a long, difficult, but possible process.
SilkiePJ
2025-01-21 19:37:34 +0000 UTCAlthough certainly not to the level of Peggy, I recently finished a bout of PT from a surgery. Long story short, I had severe foot pain start in the summer of 2023 from a small bone spur deformity on my heel (they should call me Andrew Deformed.) In May of 2024, I was finally able to get surgery to correct it. Even though I only had my foot immobilized for 6 weeks in a boot, the entire year-long process of pain, limping, and off and on again crutches and boots SEVERELY messed up my natural walking motion. It is a VERY strange thing to have to functionality relearn how to walk again as an adult. Although my physical therapist was better than Peggy's (at the very least, when I went, she was working with me and only me during that hour) I also only had that one hour a week from my crappy insurance, and had to be diligent about doing the exercises at home. I still have foot pain to this day and have to do stretches and other exercises throughout the day just to keep it at a tolerable level, and I do wonder if things would have been different had I a more Cotton Hill type of therapist who berated me instead of constantly telling me what a good job I did, when I did only 0 to 1 reps.
Andrew Bouvier
2025-01-21 03:14:06 +0000 UTCThe next episode Bills are made to be broken is a part 4 very lightly. Peggy is in rehab throughout the episode when ricky and bill are both in, and she mentions her doctor who thought she’d never walk again
Andrew
2025-01-20 21:11:45 +0000 UTCHey. They mentioned my real-life event of the person who had the baby on the toilet.
TJ Gaines
2025-01-20 18:39:58 +0000 UTCwhat is the legality of a gavel being interuped? does that really work? like, at a child custody hearing? asking for a friend
Riley Hall
2025-01-20 18:04:27 +0000 UTCAt almost exactly the same time this episode aired, my mom became wheelchair bound for the remainder of her life due to an allergic reaction to the Hep-B vaccination. What makes these two episodes so remarkable to me, is the same reason I struggled to watch them when I was younger, they are such an accurate portrayal of the loss of dignity that someone experiences when they lose their ability to walk
I.C. Weiner
2025-01-20 17:06:14 +0000 UTCGeographic pedantry joke: Peggy's "correction" of Cotton's record still places him in both the Pacific and European theaters, as she failed to omit Sardinia. Perhaps she didn't recognize the name and assumed it was in the Pacific
Steve R
2025-01-20 16:38:39 +0000 UTCGuys, guys… rewatch Full Metal Jacket. Rewatch the first act. You might have a different take.
John Halski
2025-01-20 15:15:23 +0000 UTC
