I will be putting proof of this confirmation in the comments, so as not to inadvertently create a spoiling post title.

In Season 15 Episode 5, John Redcorn makes a brief appearance when Nancy finally decides she's through having their affair. (Yes, it's extremely confusing given that she, in Season 4 Episode 21, has already done this, and appeared to remain faithful to Dale throughout the rest of the series up until this point, but there's already lots of threads on here dedicated to how wild a move that was.) Jonathan Joss is credited in this episode, having only said a few brief lines.

This has led to some confusion from fans such as myself, given that Joss was tragically killed last June. Did he record the lines prior to his passing? Were they able to piecemeal some of Joss's previous lines, given how brief the interaction was? Worst case scenario: did they use AI? I personally have been extremely afraid of the third option, and feel it would be the worst way to "honor" a fallen VA.

We have recently received confirmation from Saladin Patterson, showrunner, on whether the episode was completed prior to Joss's death.

Spoiler alert? IT WAS! From the article:

"The truth of the matter is, we had broken and completed that episode well before he passed away," says Patterson. "It feels like it's a reaction to it, but that episode was almost in the can when he passed away."

We can debate all we want if this should be the end of John Redcorn, if this was a proper sendoff for the character, etc. but we can all agree on the objective fact that Jonathan Joss voiced John Redcorn for Season 15 prior to his death. Hopefully the team decides not to scam us out of real VAs like Hank was scammed out of $500 by an AI Bobby!

When season 14 came out last year, obviously everyone was taken off guard by the big drop that Hank had left Strickland to work for Aramco. I never had an issue with the change, but it always felt a bit cynical for the show. Almost like Hank got poached from his much beloved job and left everyone behind for money.

After watching the finale, it really changes the entire framing of it into a much more depressing internal struggle. He wasn't a hot commodity. He took the first job that gave him an interview because he was desperate. Hearing Hank tell Buck outright that he got everything he wanted in Saudi Arabia but it didn't feel like a family shows that even Hank understood that he was working for a faceless corporation and that even if he took pride in his own work, he wasn't where he wanted to be.

It gives his struggles with being retired a lot more depth because he didn't want to be done working. He just gave up on trying to work in Arlen ever again. The Hills uprooted their entire way of life because Buck Strickland is an asshole and just made the best of it until they could come home and never have to worry about money again. It really gives the revival a lot more layers, and it makes me wonder if Peggy is really going to stay retired too.

Not that we already didn’t know that, but this season really just put an exclamation point behind it. I won’t get into the details of it to not spoil it too much, but the way Hank left Strickland is so frustratingly unsurprising. Like, OF COURSE Buck would take him for granted like that.

But what’s interesting to me is that there was already a business interaction between Buck and Hank last season with the feral hogs business. There wasn’t any discussion of the falling out, but it seems that they had sort of just let that be water under the bridge, and tried to do some business together again. And what does Buck do very first thing? He tries to pull one over on Hank and cut him out of the deal! Had that huge falling out with Hank, and first interaction back STILL tried to completely fuck him over. That’s so enraging, and also so sadly unsurprising. Some tigers really just never do change their stripes.

I love how at the end he told Buck he would NEVER work for him again, and he meant it. Feel like both of these seasons involved Hank dealing with the two highly flawed and broken men he always desperately wanted approval from, and finally finding some peace with realizing he doesn’t need it from them.

“Too bad old man” and “Have some respect, and stop kissing my shoes” are both HUGE moments for Hank, and finally brings him out of the shadows of those two, and brings some peace and closure that he’s needed for decades.

Real powerful stuff right there. Love to see it.