Luanne Virgin 2.0

"Luanne Virgin 2.0" is the 99th episode of King of the Hill. This was the 15th episode from the fifth season. This episode is rated TV-PG DLS.

Plot

While going to develop some photos with the Hills, Luanne states that she is dating the photo clerk and can use his employee discount; however, the clerk coldly dumps her as she tries to pay. On the way back home Luanne bitterly expresses regret at having slept with him. Hank is shocked at the revelation that Luanne isn't a virgin, and horrified to learn that she has had three other sexual partners as well. Hank takes Luanne to talk to Reverend Stroup about her sins, and Reverend Stroup suggests enrolling Luanne in a born-again virgin program - but coaxes Hank and Peggy to attend with Luanne as her "virginity sponsors".

The day of the program arrives, and Reverend Stroup begins by dividing the attendees up by gender to discuss their sexual histories. In the men's group, Hank reveals that his only partner ever is Peggy, at whose insistence the two of them waited until marriage. Another young man, Rhett, also states that he has had only one partner, but his retelling of the occasion reveals that he had merely been getting a back massage and ejaculated involuntarily. Meanwhile, the women are given chocolate kisses, one for each man they've slept with. Luanne receives her four kisses; Peggy asks for a single kiss for Hank, but when Reverend Stroup openly praises Peggy for her restraint, she suddenly blurts out that she has actually had two partners. After everyone else leaves, Peggy confides to Luanne that her first partner had been a close friend who came out to her, and the two of them had only had sex to see if he really was gay. Luanne's next step is the born-again-virgin ceremony, done like a baptism in the waters of Lake Arlen. Peggy finds herself increasingly consumed by guilt over hiding her true sexual history from Hank. Hank, meanwhile, decides that Luanne needs a decent boyfriend for a change, and fixes her up with Rhett; they hit it off immediately, but their mutual attraction is obviously primarily physical. Later they attend a church-run abstinence dance along with Hank, Peggy, Bobby, and Connie. While dancing, Rhett can no longer take the sexual tension and proposes to Luanne. An ecstatic Luanne runs and tells Hank and Peggy, who try to talk her out of marrying someone she barely knows just to have sex. When Peggy presses her insistence, Luanne lets it slip at last that Peggy had had sex before meeting Hank.

Hank is furious over this new revelation, not only because Peggy had kept this from him but also because she had had premarital sex with another and then refused to do so with Hank. Despite Peggy's genuine apologies, Hank refuses to hear her out and goes to stay with Luanne, helping the couple prepare for their wedding despite Peggy's pleas to reconsider. The next night, Peggy is unable to sleep from the turmoil and looks out onto Rainey Street... and spies Luanne sneaking out of her bedroom window. She phones Luanne's house and alerts Hank to the situation; Hank rushes outside to where Luanne and Rhett are making out in a van. Hank interrupts the couple, declaring that the wedding is to be held the next day; Peggy arrives and again tries to convince Luanne that marrying just to have sex is a terrible idea, and that if she herself had married the first person she slept with she never would have met Hank, whom she truly loves. Hank, however, is unmoved, and drags Luanne back inside. The next day finds Hank and Luanne alone at the lake where the wedding is to be held. Hank wonders where all the guests are, but Luanne reveals that she has called the wedding off, having reflected on Peggy's words and realising that she and Rhett would be marrying for the wrong reasons after all. Meanwhile, Reverend Stroup is performing the born-again-virgin ceremony for Peggy. Hank reacts with skepticism at first, but seeing his wife in her wet baptismal robe distracts him from his anger. Peggy proposes that the two of them start over, and Hank retrieves her from the lake, carrying her back to his truck to 'get her out of her wet clothes'. Luanne then giggles that someone is going to lose their virginity, but it's not going to be her.

Quotes and exchanges

• Hank: So that means you're not-
  Luanne: Uncle Hank, I quit being a virgin the first time I had sex.
  Hank: Nobody likes a quitter, Luanne!

• Pastor Rayburn: We're going to kick things off today by testifying to the number of sexual partners each of us has had. ...Four. (wistfully) ...So close to five...

• Luanne: Did you know that the changing table at Whataburger is strong enough to hold up one person but not two?
  Rhett: I thought people only had sex in bed! ...or in a shower... Yeah, th- that could work, right? Or- is there enough room to lie down...?
  Luanne (giggling): Awww, real virgins are so cute!

• (Hank and Peggy watch Bobby and Connie swingdance together.)
  Peggy: Well, look at Bobby! I think he has finally found his sport!
  (Hank only sighs wearily in response.)

Continuity and trivia

• Hank is surprised in this episode that Luanne isn't a virgin, but in "Husky Bobby" he found her in bed with Buckley. Since they both had their trousers on, though, the prudish Hank may have naively assumed that they hadn't actually had sex. In "Hilloween", Bobby tells Luanne that the two of them need to be careful because Satanists like to sacrifice virgins, and Luanne responds only with a nervous, guilty chuckle.

• Luanne lists her previous partners, in addition to the photo clerk, as Buckley, who died in "Propane Boom", and Rad and "Rad's ex-best-friend" from "The Wedding of Bobby Hill".

• The music featured during the abstinence dance is an instrumental version of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's song "You & Me & the Bottle Makes 3 Tonight (Baby)".

• The plot of this is similar to that of the Season Two episode I Remember Mono since in that episode Peggy discovers Hank had kissed another woman when they were dating and turned irrationally bitter and dismissive of him when he tried making it up to her while in this episode, Hank discovers Peggy had slept with a man before she met him and Hank turned mad and bitter towards her for not telling him all the years they've been married this time as she tried to apologize to him numerous times.