Saved from cancellation by a fan outcry, the currently airing eighth season of History Channel’s “Swamp People” debuted to a stellar 2 million viewers. The hit show continues to follow the lives of several groups of Louisiana alligator hunters — all hard men of the land who travel into the wetlands to snag their deadly prey.

Well, almost all hard men. Although it’s difficult to think of a vocation more masculine than alligator hunting, “Swamp People” doesn’t depict an all boys’ club. Women participate as well, and not just to join the men but to lead their own hunts.

“Swamp People” doesn’t depict an all boys’ club. Women participate as well, and not just to join the men but to lead their own hunts.

Hunters such as Elizabeth “Gator Queen Liz” Cavalier, her daughter Jessica, and Marie Lacoste have demonstrated that bagging a gator is a gender-inclusive activity. The show doesn’t condescend to these fierce women, who traverse the waters and slay gigantic gators with the best of the men.

Related: ‘Swamp People’ Captures Something Hollywood Can’t

Its depiction of female hunters is yet another way in which “Swamp People” does grievous harm to Hollywood stereotypes. Just as it has portrayed the male cast members as industrious, skilled men instead of backwards rubes, the female hunters are shown to be as tough as a gator’s hide, unfazed by tasks and perils that would send most contemporary Americans running.

In its unassuming way, “Swamp People” shows it’s not gender that matters, but how well one can hook and shoot an alligator.

Returning to “Swamp People” is Kristi Broussard, last seen in the show’s fourth season. In the years since her last appearance, Kristi got married and had two children, giving her what the show’s narrator describes — in an exclusive clip from tonight’s episode provided to LifeZette — as “a whole new set of priorities.”

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Broussard, having not so much as held a gun in over three years, tells the audience she was inspired to return to the business after spotting a nine-foot alligator in her yard.

“It makes you think,” she says. “What if my little boy had been playing outside?”

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The latest episode of “Swamp People” — which includes Broussard’s return — airs tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT on History.