Thursday's fourth-season finale of NBC's "Community" is ominously titled "Advanced Introduction to Finality." This seems to suggest, as many fans suspect and fear, that the season finale is the series finale.

And yikes, those sure look like the vultures of cancellation circling above the study group at the mirthful heart of this antic comedy. Then again . . . Remember that last May's third-season finale was titled "Introduction to Finality" and, even with the departure of "Community" creator and show runner Dan Harmon, there was a fourth season.

PREVIEW

Community

What: Fourth-season finale for the community-college comedy starring Joel McHale, Chevy Chase and East Cleveland native Yvette Nicole Brown.

When: 8 p.m. Thursday

Where: WKYC Channel 3

You just never know. With NBC preparing to announce its plans for the 2013-14 season on Sunday, May 12, that's the sentiment being voiced by "Community" star Yvette Nicole Brown. The East Cleveland native plays ever-outspoken divorcee Shirley Bennett on the ever-crafty show about a band of misfits at a community college.

"We still don't know whether we're canceled or we're coming back," she said during a phone interview. "We're literally going to find out a few days after the season finale airs whether or not it's the series finale. I'll say this: This feels likes the toughest mountain we have yet to climb, and that's saying a lot after losing Dan Harmon last year."

So things are looking mighty bleak for the seven members of the study group at Greendale Community College: superslick suspended lawyer Jeff (Joel McHale), beautiful former activist Britta (Gillian Jacobs), glad-handing businessman Pierce (Chevy Chase), high-strung and compulsive Annie (Alison Brie), former high school star Troy (Donald Glover) and obsessed pop-culture guru Abed (Danny Pudi). It's Abed's constant references to films, television shows and characters that often propel the plotlines for the study group.

"If I were a betting woman, I'd say be prepared to say goodbye to the Greendale Seven," said Brown, 1989 graduate of Warrensville Heights High School. "But, even saying that, I really don't know what's going to happen. This is a show that defied all odds each season and kept coming back with great stuff. So will I be stunned if they give us a fifth season? No. Do I expect us to be back? Again, no."

She's not alone in that expectation. Several industry watchers see "Community" tilting toward cancellation. And that's partly because it has been a show NBC executives never seemed to embrace or appreciate -- or promote, for that matter.

The 13-episode fourth season was supposed to start in October, but, abruptly, NBC delayed the show's return to February. Planning for an October return, the production team had gone heavy on holiday episodes, only to have the Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes air over the last three months.

In this Thursday's episode, Jeff contemplates graduation, having finally earned enough credits to graduate. Meanwhile, the group revisits "the darkest timeline," an alternate study-group reality introduced last season.

"Jeff isn't the only one contemplating graduation," said Brown, a University of Akron graduate. "It's a decision other people in the group are facing as well. And there's another surprise lurking in the finale, one that fans will be very happy about. It's a surprise that no one is talking about. For me, the most surprising thing about this surprise is that it hasn't gotten out. I won't say more than that."

Emotionally, Brown is ready for the wild "Community" ride to be over.

"It will be sad to say goodbye to this show and these characters, but if this is the show's final episode, I am very happy where all of the characters end up," she said. "This will be a good place to end it. It will be satisfying as either the season finale or the series finale."

And, yes, that's by design. The "Community" team isn't counting on a fifth season.

"Except at the end of the first season, we've never known if we're coming back," Brown said. "So each year we've crafted a season finale that also can be a series finale, just in case. Enough is left open that we could come back, but it's also a good place to wrap it up."

Brown, 41, began landing TV roles in 2000. Her first regular character on a prime-time network series was Eartha Cleveland on "The Big House," a 2004 ABC comedy that lasted six episodes. But that year also marked her first appearance as Helen Dubois, her recurring character on Nickelodeon's "Drake & Josh."

If this is the end of the line for "Community," she's determined to celebrate what was accomplished, not to dwell on what might have been.

"I got to work up close with some of the funniest people I've ever met," Brown said. "I had a front-row seat to all that. Whatever happens, this will be the kind of show people will still be studying and talking about years from now. It has been a difficult four years for these characters. They were a group of misfits finding a way to accept each other and love each other and forgive each other, despite their differences.

"They became a community."