You know that feeling Office fans had last fall, after waiting four months for the resolution to the “Casino Night� cliffhanger only to be handed “Gay Witch Hunt� and the promise of 23 episodes of dragged-out angst between Jim and Pam?

That’s how I felt by the end of last night’s 30 Rock, a brilliantly hilarious episode that concluded with a dramatic thud.

“Cleveland� opens with Liz and Floyd (Tina Fey and Jason Sudeikis) checking out a posh uptown apartment. If Floyd gets his big promotion he’ll be making “get away with murdering my first wife� kind of dough. These two are getting serious. Floyd envisions her moving her humidifiers into the place.

In Jack’s (Alec Baldwin) office, Jack tells Liz he’d like her to get to know his new fiancé Phoebe (Emily Mortimer). So he gives her his gold card (made of real gold) to take Phoebe and Jenna for lunch and shopping.

Meanwhile, Tracey’s (Tracy Morgan) loan application for his Jefferson biopic was rejected. They didn’t want to pay for the Claymation, apparently. Still, the movie is only a small part of “The Tracy Jordan Comeback,� which includes a comedy tour and Michael McDonald cover album. Liz is skeptical, but Tracy assures her he’s on his grind. He’s going to be so rich his grandkids will play lacrosse.

Jack stops by to put in a good word for Floyd on his promotion interview when the other candidate rolls past in a wheelchair. No, Jack tells Floyd, you’re not going to beat that.

At lunch, Liz’s prodding prompts Phoebe to concede that her motives with Jack might appear suspect.

Jenna: Wow, how Sex and the City are we right now? I’m Samantha, (to Phoebe) you’re Charlotte, and (to Liz) and you’re the lady at home who watches it.

On set, Frank brings Tracy a magazine article in which Bill Cosby calls Tracy an embarrassment to African Americans. And Kenneth breaks the news that his stand-up act is canceled. What’s more, Michael McDonald is withholding the rights to his music. (Kenneth does a sweet Michael McDonald, by the way.) Tracy sees a pattern: The Black Crusaders are out to destroy him.

Out shopping, Phoebe begins revealing her concerns about her and Jack’s sexual compatibility, freaking Liz out. It seems Jack fell asleep during a critical intimate moment. But Phoebe just wants to make him happy, so she runs up the gold card with new clothes.

Floyd, meanwhile, lost the job to Garkle, and now he’s tired of New York. In fact, the whole rat race has got him down – the rat race his landlord stages in the hallway outside his apartment, that is. He’s thinking of going back home to Cleveland. Liz doesn’t want to leave New York, though the bum who spits in her mouth – to which I say, “eeewwwwww!� – begins give her pause.

In his dressing room, Tracy explains The Black Crusaders to Liz. They’re a secret group of powerful black Americans – Cosby, Oprah Winfrey, Jesse Jackson, Colon Powell and Gordon from Sesame Street – who meet quarterly in the skull of the Statue of Liberty. They can ruin anybody they think makes black people look bad, he says. They tanked 50 Cent’s movie, blew out Terrell Owens’s ankle and canceled Eddie Murphy’s Oscar after he ran out on Scary Spice.

Since Jack hasn’t been above 72nd Street in 10 years, he’s skipping Pheobe’s speaking engagement at Columbia that night. When Jack nods off on his office couch, his assistant Jonathan tips off Liz that Phoebe’s really got plans downtown that night.

Liz pops in to a restaurant and finds Phoebe having dinner with an older gentleman, eliciting a “By the hammer of Thor!� for the second time. Everyone’s going to be saying that soon, you watch.

Phoebe busts Liz busting her, but before Liz can tell Jack, he tells her Tracy set fire to a cardboard cutout of Al Roker and locked himself in his dressing room, fearing The Black Crusaders want to make him disappear like Coolio. In the midst of this, Floyd shows up to take Liz to Cleveland for the weekend.

If Cleveland’s half the paradise portrayed in the ensuing sequence, well I’m still never going there. But it seems like a nice place. Hey, that’s Tracy behind Liz!

Over dinner, Floyd tells Liz he’s been offered a job with the top law firm in town and wants her to move with him. At this point, I’m nervous about these two and the direction of the show.

Back in New York, Liz finds out Tracy’s missing. As she tells Jack she might move to Cleveland, the characters in the “Hot Babies� sketch walk by, a result of Liz not being around for a couple of days.

Backstage, Liz runs into Phoebe, who claims she was only letting an old flame down easy. She says she didn’t tell Jack because she didn’t want to upset him. She wants to be Yoko to Jack’s John Lennon.

Phoebe: This is none of your business anyway. I’m marrying Jack. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted.

Liz: Oh, I bet he is.

Phoebe: You don’t know anything about me so back off.

Liz: What happened to your accent?

Phoebe: (pausing) I don’t know what you’re on about, you daft wanker.

Tracy calls Liz from Cleveland to say he’s quitting to start a new life. When Jack learns it’s because of The Black Crusaders he runs off, fast too.

Liz tells Floyd she can’t move to Cleveland. He agrees it was a crazy idea, which she’s glad to hear it until she realizes he’s going without her.

The progression of Fey’s character from lonely to hapless to happy has been amazing. Now she’s regressing, probably in a vein search for the laughs she scored back in November. I fear 30 Rock really is becoming The Office.

I really cringed when Liz showed up next in Jack’s office. These two go together like salmon and caramel. Asked what she thinks of Phoebe, Liz starts out complimentary and ends up ranting about everything that’s wrong with her. Phoebe was right, he tells her. She’s infatuated with him. This prompts Liz to reveal that she knows he fell asleep on top of Phoebe in Paris. (Wouldn’t that kill a sufferer of Avian Bone Syndrome?)

The scene and the episode end awkwardly with Liz brushing past Phoebe on her way out the door.

Blerg indeed, Liz Lemon. Blerg indeed.

(Photos: NBC.com)