This is a hilarious episode that lets us see Barney Fife's home situation. This is what it's like when Barney is off duty and he's not over at Andy's or with Thelma Lou (or Juanita). We see that he rents an upstairs room from Mrs. Mendlebright at the local boarding house. Mrs. Mendlebright is a sweet little old lady who will treat you just fine as long as you are not breaking any of her rules. Unfortunately, her rules are little confining – no cooking in the room, no light bulbs over 40 watts, etc. So Barney copes with this by regularly breaking the rules behind her back. He uses a 60 watt bulb so he is able to read his detective magazines at night, and he smuggles in food to cook on his "illegal" hot plate. One night Andy drops by and Barney is cooking up some stew on his hotplate. Mrs. Mendlebright is occupied downstairs with a prospective new tenant. Andy and Barney get sidetracked while talking about how the room is decorated, when the pan of stew gets overcooked and the room starts filling with smoke. Of course this alerts Mrs. Mendlebright who is horrified that Barney is breaking the rules and has also just ruined her special dresser with his cooking. In her anger she throws Barney out and rents his room to the new tenant (a slick, older man who already seems a bit too over-complimentary of Mrs. Mendlebright). In the meantime, Barney fixes up the back room at the courthouse and decides to stay there until he can find something else. This leads to some awkward moments when Andy and Opie walk in one evening to check on why the lights are flashing on and off and find Barney entertaining Thelma Lou. After a while, Andy realizes that there is nowhere for Barney to go but back to Mrs. Mendlebright's, so he convinces him to apologize and beg for his room back. As it turns out, Barney is too late because Mrs. Mendlebright has already made a decision that will soon change everything.
Review of Up in Barney's Room
