Barney and Thelma Lou went their separate ways when Barney left Mayberry to join the Raleigh police force (coinciding with Don Knotts's departure from the series in 1965). In the sixth-season episode, "The Return of Barney Fife", Barney returns to Mayberry for a high-school reunion. Intent on getting back with Thelma Lou, Barney discovers she has been married six weeks to a man named Gerald Whitfield. Betty Lynn recounted that she so strongly objected to her character being married to anyone other than Barney that while performing in the episode, she pretended that Whitfield was actually a co-worker who she paid to pretend to be her husband so that she wouldn't "be left in a lurch" with Barney. This episode is Thelma Lou's final appearance on the series.