Nancy Does Dallas

"Nancy Does Dallas" is the 13th episode in the 13th season of the Fox animated series King of the Hill, and the 248th episode overall. It originally aired on March 22, 2009. The episode's title references the 1978 pornographic movie Debbie Does Dallas.

Plot

Nancy yearns for a more meaningful career after her producer tosses one too many fluff piece assignments her way. Transforming a story about a student bringing his pet possum to class into a panic-inducing exposé on an apparent lack of security in schools, she receives a job offer that takes her to a major news station in Dallas. Meanwhile, the panic from her news report is so far-reaching that Tom Landry Middle School begins teaching self-defense classes, and Bobby and Joseph appoint themselves as security monitors for the neighborhood. Dale and Joseph react with enthusiastic support to Nancy's career advancement, though it means that the two of them will be on their own with Nancy away in Dallas.

Nancy quickly falls in with the Dallas newsroom's backstabbing, hard-partying ways. Developing a fondness for drink, she teams up with her new co-anchor Gwen Saint James to get rid of the lead anchor Wade Bixby and ride the station's float in an upcoming parade without him. But when she invites Peggy and Minh to a gathering of high-profile Dallas personalities, she reveals to their appalled astonishment that her ulterior motive is to get both Wade and Gwen fired and take over by herself. Meanwhile, without Nancy around to keep him in check, Dale becomes enmeshed in his various conspiracy theories, and while using an array of air conditioners to attempt to acclimate himself and Joseph for a hypothetical ice-age he blows his house's circuit breaker. He sneaks into the Hills' home to steal their electricity, only to be assaulted by Bobby, who mistakes him for a prowler and causes a bookcase to fall on him, breaking his leg. Hank and Peggy's pleas for Nancy to return home at this point fall on deaf ears, as Nancy has meanwhile successfully schemed her way into a position on the station's parade float, riding solo.

On the day of the big parade, Nancy arrives drunk, and in her alcoholic stupor eventually tumbles off the float in full view of the cameras of every news source in town. Having disgraced her new station, she is fired and sent back to Arlen, where she at least manages to get her old job with Channel 84 back. She begins plotting her next move immediately, thinking to squash the local competition until she is offered a spot in Houston. But Dale's latest mishap distracts her, and Peggy and Hank come to the realization that taking care of Dale keeps Nancy too busy to be as backstabbing and ruthless as she had been in Dallas, and that Nancy actually needs Dale more than Dale needs Nancy.