The NBC Comedy Finale Scorecard

Last night wrapped up Community, which is ending its first season, Parks And Recreation, which is ending its first-plus-six-episodes season, The Office, which is ending its sixth season, and 30 Rock, which is ending its fourth season — so they're all at slightly different places in their histories. It was a pretty strong night on balance; let's look at each one.

Obviously, we'll be talking about what happened, so don't say I didn't warn you.

 

Community ("Pascal's Triangle")

Oh, how I groaned — not figuratively, I'm saying I audibly said, "Oh, bleeeeh" — when Britta announced at the dance that she loved Jeff.

Britta doesn't love Jeff. I think it's become an underlying theme of the show that Britta doesn't love Jeff, and he doesn't love her. They have an attraction, and they're friends, and they had sex in the study room during the paintball war, which was mostly mercenary. In fact, the best parts of their relationship are built on the fact that they've managed to overcome the initial sense that they were going to date each other and actually become friends.

So when she said "I love you," into a microphone, at a dance, it was terribly disheartening. And then Slater said she also loved Jeff, and I thought ... what are they doing? I mean, the women were both clearly competing with each other, and that was what was making them overcompensate, and it seemed like the show had to know that, right? But at the same time, it's such a season-finale thing to do, the big romantic climactic thing and ... it was worrying.

But then Jeff bailed, because announcing in public that you love someone when you clearly do not is less charming than crazy, and he ran into Annie (with whom he has a weird, unsettled but interesting chemistry), and you could see the smooch coming, but it was still surprising, especially since she'd spent the episode planning for her departure. Once that happened, the whole finale started to look a bit subversive, underlining that indeed, those big announcements into microphones are not really what it's all about.

All that, plus Troy walked around eating a giant cookie the entire time, and nothing is better than that.

Grade: A-

Parks And Recreation ("Freddy Spaghetti")

The best decision they've made on Parks And Recreation, I think, is to make Leslie socially awkward and somewhat strange, but ultimately very dedicated and reasonably effective at her job. When the show started, the issue was partly whether she was just a blonde Michael Scott, and she isn't that. Leslie is a good public servant. Leslie isn't stupid. (She's naive.) She would never, ever do the more dishonest 50 percent of the things Michael Scott does (blaming others, lying to the staff to avoid confrontation, and so forth).

So this episode focused on saluting Leslie's effectiveness and the way it has won over Ron Swanson, much of her staff, and even The New Guy played by Adam Scott. Throw in how good Rob Lowe is as a smarmy nitwit, and you have a show that fired on all cylinders right up to the end.

Oh, and while we're handing out praise: How great is Chris Pratt as Andy, a role that could have been absolutely pointless? He gives that guy such a giant heart and such a total lack of malice that the fact that he's dumb doesn't make it entirely unbelievable that April would fall for him. The little facial expressions that flicker on his face are one of the show's greatest delights.

Grade: A

The Office ("Whistleblower")

It's not a secret that The Office has had a very tough season. It has seemed adrift at times, and this episode didn't work particularly well, either. It had its good moments, but I've never attached myself to the Sabre storyline, and the printers catching on fire was never an idea that struck me as inherently funny.

Yes, I always like it when Darryl is messing with Michael. And yes, any time I see Andy Buckley as David Wallace (here, wearing a "Suck It" sweatshirt), I am delighted. But at this point, the memory of Holly Flax has been dragged out for significantly longer than Holly was actually on the show, and there's part of me that feels like ... bring her back already, or let's stop using that as the way to suddenly imbue Michael with warmth. The relationship itself really did imbue Michael with warmth, but the endless mentions of her in her absence feel like cheating to me.

It was funny that it turned out that there were a whole bunch of whistleblowers. But I still feel like I've drifted away from these people. I'm not tracking with Jim and Pam anymore, and I'm not tracking with Michael right now either. The whole show seems a little ... grumpy and negative. It's always had very dark humor, obviously, but it doesn't seem to be cut with warmth the way it once was, and I'm definitely hoping they'll regroup a little before next season.

With all that said, Ryan's new "Woof" service really made me giggle.

Grade: C+

30 Rock ("I Do I Do")

I haven't really liked Julianne Moore as Jack's love interest (love her, but I never bought that Jack would be into her, and boy, that accent is really distracting), so if indeed he's headed off with Elizabeth Banks (who has often been wonderfully funny), that's delightful news.

I don't know whether we'll ever see Matt Damon again, and his comedy chops are hardly a shocker anymore, but he had some nice moments as Liz's dream man — the pilot. It was a great touch that he loved her show, because as wrapped up as she is in her work, Liz doesn't often acknowledge the existence of outside opinions of it or what it would mean to her to have people love it.

Kenneth's story was a little goofy, and it didn't seem to have much of a point except to facilitate that closing speech. And I'm pretty sure I've gotten all I'm going to about the story of Jenna and the Jenna impersonator, but I understand that Will Forte has a movie to promote.

And finally: they went a long way for that "There's only one Wesley Snipes" joke, but when they got there, I laughed.

Grade: B+

So what can we learn from all of this? The season ended largely as it's been proceeding for quite a while: the first hour of the comedy block, though it's less-watched and doesn't have the stack of awards (yet), is stronger than the Office/30 Rock half. Which makes it even sadder that in the fall, Community is going to go up against The Big Bang Theory, and Parks And Recreation isn't even going to be on until midseason. Should be an interesting — and possibly a depressing — fall.