Scrubs, "Our Thanks": Our final finale, finally?

A quick review of the "Scrubs" finale (which is at least the third time the show has aired an episode that many assumed to be the last one ever) coming up just as soon as I dress as a slutty ninja for Halloween...

As I've been saying for the last bunch of episodes, how you feel about this one depends on if you viewed this as "Scrubs" season 9 or "Scrubs Med School" season 1. The early episodes with Zach Braff didn't work no matter which viewpoint you took, and the rest certainly didn't live up to the best of original "Scrubs." But once JD wrapped up his teaching stint at Sacred Heart 2.0, the season evolved into a promising, albeit uneven debut for a spin-off.

When I talked to Bill Lawrence a couple of months ago, he said, "I loved the ending of 'Scrubs.' I didn't end this." However, he and his team (in this case, writer Sean Russell and director Rick Blue) did come up with a fairly satisfying conclusion to this first season.

Cole finds a new career path (and very belatedly gives Donald Faison something to do now that JD is gone). Denise and Drew finally accept that their relationship is exactly that. And the med students finish working with the corpse of Ben, whom we met in the season (series?) premiere.

If "Our Thanks" wasn't as strong as last week's episode, it was because the episode leaned more heavily on Lucy, who never really clicked as our new main character. (Too JD-like, and only the running gag about her horse obsession ever made me laugh much.) But Turk's attempts to scare Cole off of surgery were all funny (and gave us one more/last scene of Turk dancing), and the Denise/Drew storyline was a nice role reversal on all the earlier shows where she was the one who had to soften up and embrace her feelings, and well-played by Michael Mosley.

Like I said last week, I seriously doubt the show gets yet another reprieve, unless ABC's comedy development is just a complete disaster (or unless the economics somehow make sense to use it again as filler in timeslots where ABC knows it won't compete anyway). The ratings last week were quite a bit below what "The Middle" and the other Wednesday comedies did, and with those three in reruns, I imagine last night's numbers will be even lower.

To me, "Scrubs" ended a year ago, and it ended really, really well. "Scrubs Med School" had a lot of growing pains, but ultimately it became something I enjoyed. I don't expect or need it to return, but if it did? I'd probably keep watching.

What did everybody else think?