Two out of three of NBC’s sitcoms are done for the season, and only one of them will be returning on the network next year. Favorite child The Office will be back this week for an hour-long season finale, but Scrubs and 30 Rock ended their strike-shortened seasons as strongly as they could.

Scrubs – My Princess

This episode serves as the season finale, but it was very clearly not intended to. Very early on in the episode we see Dr. Kelso walking around like he is still the chief of medicine, and that’s because he still is. This episode was meant to come before the most recent two, and it was switched to be the season finale because NBC did not give Bill Lawrence the number of shows he wanted to wrap up the show after the writer’s strike. Because of that, the show will jump to ABC for its eight and final season next year. That’s great news for the show, and this episode did a fine job as a season finale, but the fact that it had to be shown out of sequence was a little jarring at first.

But besides the weird timing of the episode, this episode does a great job at “breaking the mold” of the show by setting it as both a real-world story and a storybook version that Dr. Cox is telling his son Jack as a bedtime story inspired by The Princess Bride. Every character is present in the medieval village – Elliot is a princess, J.D. is the village idiot, Turk and Carla are Turla, a two-headed creature, Janitor is a giant, Kelso, is an evil overlord, and since he is telling the story, Cox is a heroic knight. The jokes within the story are really funny, from Elliot demanding her chastity belt key back from Keith, to the appearance of fairy Todd, to the not-so-subtle Princess Bride reference when Knight Cox tells the disease to “prepare to die.” (As an aside, does it mean something that in the last episode before the show heads to ABC there is a smoke monster in Scrubs, a nod to Lost perhaps?) Elliot and J.D. go on a mythical quest to discover what is wrong with their patient before they finally discover the “golden ring” of the true diagnosis. Dr. Cox tells Jack that they were able to save the woman in time, but then confides to Jordan that in real life, the woman still passed away. Once again, this show amazingly juggles farce with tragedy, and it makes for a poignant end to the season. Because of moments like that, I’m glad that we’ll be getting a whole extra season of this amazing show.

Best joke of the episode: “Your ass is bleeding” meaning exactly what you think it means.

The Office – Job Fair

The Dunder-Mifflin Scranton branch needs some young blood – to euthanize as Michael puts it – so they are off to recruit high school interns at a local job fair. This premise is very simple, but it plays out hilariously as Michael, Pam, Oscar, and Darryl head to Pam’s alma mater to entice new paper salesmen with a single piece of classic DM paper. The interactions between Michael and the students are all deliciously awkward, as he makes a snap judgment deciding that Justin, a student Pam found, was clearly not good enough for the internship, only to beg him later when he could find no one else. Michael is downright cruel to Pam, making her drive back to the office for a single piece of paper after insisting that she only bring one in the first place, referring to her as eye candy, and saying that she will “do” any prospective interns, as she’s already dated two guys in the office that they know about. It’s really no wonder that she was looking for other opportunities as a graphic designer at the end of the episode. How this will affect her future with Jim remains to be seen…

Because while all this is going on at the high school, Jim has decided to actually try to succeed at his job after Ryan’s warning last week. He therefore brings Andy and Kevin along for a golf outing to try to win a new client. Andy practiced so much that his hands are covered with blisters, Kevin is a little too eager to gamble on the game, and the prospective client doesn’t seem at all interested in changing paper suppliers. Watching Jim try his best sales pitch without coming off as too aggressive was handled really well, and it is given extra weight knowing that he wants to keep his job so his future will be secure for Pam. And, of course, watching Andy crash the golf cart was hysterical too. This episode also teases a possible reunion between Dwight and Angela, as they are the only two left in the office after everyone else decides to ditch. I was hoping for a reconciliation, but the uncomfortableness between the two was probably more realistic.

Best joke of the episode: Pam’s detailed “Do you remember” to Michael, all of which he denied.

30 Rock – Cooter

This week’s 30 Rock picks up right after last week’s, with Jack now working in D.C. , which makes the twelfth floor of 30 Rock seem luxurious by comparison. The show’s political humor rarely feels forced, and this episode continues that tradition by not making (many) biting comments about the current administration, and instead focusing the jokes on the denial of a ceiling leak, a bold initiative to get pens, and the bizarre nicknames all the government workers are given by the commander in chief. Matthew Broderick is great as Cooter Burger (because he resembled a turtle and was eating a sandwich when Dubya met him), and given the way the show brings back old plot threads, it’s a safe bet we’ll be seeing more of him in Season Three. Speaking of which, it was a nice treat to see Edie Falco back as C.C., and the cameo made perfect sense as a way for Jack to get out of his current job by funding the ridiculous “gay bomb.”

Meanwhile, Liz begins to suspect she’s pregnant with Dennis’ child. Her remark to Cerie that she knows how birth control works since she’s been sexually active since she was 25 was a great throw-away line, and the results from her pregnancy tests seemed like the show was really committed to having Liz be with child. The fact that it was a false positive brought on by her Mexican snacks was absolutely brilliant, as were all of her phone calls to Jack. Their friendship never felt so real or believable as it did in this episode. The other stories, with Tracy’s porn game nearing completion and Kenneth’s quest to be a Page at the Olympics were also funny, even though they didn’t get as much screen time. Jenna stole the scenes from both, with her recording session for the video game and her revealing how to backdoor brag to Kenneth. The cliffhangers may have been a bit silly, but overall this episode did a great job of ending Season Two on a high note.

Best joke of the episode: Jenna admitting that she had a threesome with Roseanne and Tom Arnold, but that it was two whole years ago.