The Return of Malcolm Merriweather

This is a great episode Bernard Fox is terrific& returns to help out Aunt Bee. Of course everything doesn't go as planned, but watching things go from good to bad is the fun. Malcolm does it all & Aunt Bee feels like the extra wheel on the wagon. The food he prepares seems perfect for Andy & Barney & it seems they have forgotten about Aunt Bee & her tuna fish sandwiches. Opie likes having him back even though he has to take baths more often. Everythings going smooth until Opie hears Malcolm singing as he's working & says Aunt Bee use to sing to but not lately. Malcolm figures it out Aunt Bee is not happy just sitting around & doing nothing & feels she is not needed. This is where the fun starts with Malcolm pretending to be drunk from drinking the cooking sherry & serving cold soup to fallen down. Barney says he fell off the wagon but Andy suspects something else & smells the sherry in the sink. Aunt Bee comes down from her bedroom to see what's going on Andy says you not sick? & everything is a mess in the kitchen. Of course Malcolm faked it so as to leave & Aunt Bee is BACK! Andy knows what he did & thanks him for it great ending! Bernard Fox is a guy you like right off & his accent helps a lot. Loved him in Hogan's Heroes, the Mummy Returns & other shows thru his career. Wish we had shows like this now.

I am in total agreement with the reviewer referring to her character as "the annoying Aunt Bea." Since I didn't watch TAGS during its original run, I've been catching up on the series' reruns on Peacock. I generally enjoy most of the episodes, but I could easily dispense with Gomer and the Darlings altogether, at least to this point in the series.

Truthfully, in addition to the aforementioned characters, I find Aunt Bea's to be as annoying as some of the other reviewers and I generally fast forward or skip entirely episodes where she is the main focus.

This episode is no exception. She plays the martyr to a tee in this one and I find the Bernard Fox character of Malcolm Merriweather to be especially endearing, particularly in the episode where he comes into town for the first time.

Of course, the ending is predictable.

Another of a string of rehashings with very narrow recurring characters. The Darlings, the Fun Girls, Ernest T. , now Malcolm. Each was fine for one episode, but again and again with essentially the same old plots? These characters aren't broad enough, nor frankly funny enough to keep bringing them back time after time - or whenever the writers were clearly out of new ideas. This run in the fourth season is one of the dullest stretches of The Andy Griffith Show's B&W episodes. It picks up again in the fifth season, before imploding on itself in the sixth and following seasons (the color/sans Barney seasons).

This whole plot has been done before. Once again, Aunt Bee can't handle someone else taking over her jobs. Malcolm Merriweather returns and is so grateful for a place to crash he starts to run the household. He is a kind, generous man which makes it even harder to get rid of him. So he comes up with a plan which, when viewed logically, is ridiculous.

This is one of my episodes because of the back and forth between Andy and Barney. Andy giving Barney a hard time about the clock in his stomach. Barney trying to explain to Malcolm about who Abraham Lincoln was. Andy having Barney ring the bell to get Malcolm's attention and Barney ringing like he's working for the Salvation Army. A lot of little things make me laugh at this episode.