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Here's why “The Return of Barney Fife” from season six is the saddest episode of The Andy Griffith Show.

Don't get me started on this terrible episode again. It took years of therapy to get over this one episode. My therapist even help me come to the realization that this is probably where my deep seeded hatred for all color episodes of TAGS began.

This episode has been discussed several times on this board, about a year ago this is what I wrote concerning the episode:

Without question this is my favorite episode of the color years. I think it's one of the best episodes of the series, and in fact one of the best episodes of any series in the 1960's. 60's TV was all about things working out in the end. If something bad happened to a character it was always in-episode, resolved by the end of the episode, with the reset button hit in time for next episode. That didn't happen here, the audience was taken in a different direction and a real life lesson was learned, there are consequences for actions, and they can be negative consequences, and they can be permanent. This time Andy couldn't save Barney's morale.

I havent seen that one :(