On Wednesday's General Hospital:

Spinelli and Milo were both steaming mad at Logan for his unwanted assault on Lulu. Can't say as I blame them, but the violent outrage by Milo was not only predictable but just another example of how those in charge seem to migrate toward brute violence as a solution to all problems. Always level headed Georgie made a more practical offer and volunteered to speak to Lulu for Spinelli and Milo, so she wouldn't feel overwhelmed by the two of them. It was really nice to watch the young women hash out their past problems and come to an understanding with one another.

Serving up a king-sized breakfast to Jason in jail, Carly asked for his assurance that neither he nor Sonny offed Jerry. With that piece of mind, she then began plotting how she was going to get Jason out his recent jam. Jason begged, pleaded, and then made Carly promise she would do nothing to secure his freedom. He later had to have the very same argument with Spinelli who had hacked into the jail computer system to help set-up a jail-break opportunity. Expected and annoying, Ric threatened to charge Spinelli as an accessory if he didn't cooperate with the police.

Ric has always been hot to punish his brother through Jason, but he's been too involved with Lorenzo's murder from the get go for my liking, realizing he was missing only hours after he was killed. I'm getting a sneaky suspicion he's more involved with Lo's death than we've been led to believe.

The happy newlyweds had yet another heated argument over the usual topics. Carly doesn't want Jax to try and save his brother. Jax doesn't want Carly to be so involved with Jason's problems. Trouble in paradise is bound to continue because I don't see either giving up on their cause.

As predicted, the judge awarded guardianship of Laura to Scotty, much to her family's shock and dismay. All the while, Maxie informed Logan it was the perfect opportunity to proceed with their plan, reaffirming if Logan seduced Lulu and then broke her heart, she would spend a night between the sheets with him. Uhm, Maxie, Cooper is standing right behind you. How about explaining to your boyfriend how you're going to sleep with his best friend?

Warning! News and Spoilers Ahead!

• In the upcoming days and weeks, GH is going to look more like an episode of Maury Povich with multiple "Who's the Daddy" questions being answered. Look for Logan's daddy reveal, many more will learn who Jake's daddy is, and Emily begins a search for her real father.

Wife, mother, aspiring novelist, and music editor at BC Magazine, Connie Phillips spends most of her time in a fantasy land of her own creating. In reality, she writes about music, television, and the process of writing, when she’s not cheering on her kids at equestrian events. Contact: Phillips.connie@gmail.com

Allow me to present a helpful hint for aspiring genre filmmakers around the world: If and when you make the questionable decision to give your horrific cinematic monstrosity the gift of gab, you should pay very careful attention to the words and phrases that pour from his/her/its blood-stained maw. Many directors have attempted to inject some much-needed humor into their horror-based production by allowing their hairy creations to spout off at the mouth whenever the urge strikes them, only to watch in absolute terror as their celluloid offspring fails to elicit anything other than a few unintentional chuckles from its intended audience. Sometimes silence can speak volumes.

Director Lance W. Dreesen's nouveau werewolf opus Big Bad Wolf suffers greatly from what I like to refer to as Chatty Villain Syndrome, or CVS. Warwick Davis' Leprechaun series, while obviously not a barometer for what the genre can accomplish, is another franchise stricken with this oh so deadly disease, as are the last few Nightmare on Elm Street entries we've been forced to nibble upon. I've always held the belief that villains are much more frightening and intimidating when they're not trying to make me wet my diapers with the kind of ribald humor only mentally-challenged fifth graders would find remotely appealing. After all, nobody likes to die laughing.

Big Bad Wolf, on the other hand, has something going for it few werewolf flicks can claim, namely an engaging, well-scripted narrative worthy of your dwindling, media-saturated attention span. The inclusion of '80s bad-ass Richard Tyson (Three O'Clock High, Kindergarten Cop) is also a huge golden bonus, allowing this intimidating, square-jawed nightmare of a man to do exactly what he does best: scare the unsweetened Jesus Christ Superstar out of me. Had this intriguing concept come packaged with an interesting creature that didn't upchuck ridiculously cheesy one-liners all over his would-be victims, perhaps Dreesen's clever little film wouldn't strongly resemble a neutered puppy whimpering sadly in a soiled cardboard box.

Awww. Poor puppy.

The story, choking desperately on its borrowed plotlines, follows the nerdy misadventures of teenage outcast Derek Cowley (Trevor Duke). When he's not busy desperately trying to make friends with a couple of brainless fraternity clowns or pining endlessly for best friend/sexy auto mechanic Samantha (Kimberly J. Brown), our virginal hero is trying to determine whether or not his abusive stepfather Mitchell (Tyson) is a shape-shifting member of the lycanthropian race. With the help of his devilishly handsome uncle and his lifelong fellatio-prone sidekick, Derek must unravel the mystery behind a series of horrific murders before he and his crew become a plate of tasty name brand dog food — the kind that makes its own gravy. The horror!

Though I'm quick to poke Big Bad Wolf's ticklish storyline with my trusty Ball Point Pen of Giggling Cinematic Justice, I was actually more interested in the character's struggle to stop this suburban werewolf than the end result of the titular creature's gore-encrusted midnight snacks. There's a surprising amount of depth to be found here, that is, if you can get past a painfully trite opening sequence that involves not only a walking, talking, wise-cracking wolf man, but a particularly foul, bestiality-tinged rape scene as well. Of course, chances are you'll be thrusting your fingers towards the stop button long before his wolf dork gets down to serious womanizing business.

A quick question for all the genre fans in the house tonight: What crucial element is essential to the successful creation of a balls-out werewolf picture? If you're one of the pasty individuals who boldly proclaimed "Decent make-up effects!" to a room full of stuffed animals, pat yourself firmly on the back until you have achieved sufficient self-satisfaction. Unfortunately, the effects department is where Big Bad Wolf falls painfully short. For the film's wolf-oriented sequences, Richard Tyson appears to have been dipped in a vat of pine tar and covered with several pounds of unsanitized pubic hair, resulting in a hilariously awful sight gag that is compounded exponentially by the atrocious dialogue that flows like spoiled Cream of Wheat from his barely functioning mouth. Good or bad, it's definitely unique.

On the performance end of town, the film is unexpectedly tight. Trevor Duke and Kimberly J. Brown do wonders with their respective roles, giving you plenty of reasons to keep watching long after the thrill of a talking werewolf has shuffled off its mortal coil. And while Richard Tyson does an incredible job of making my anus quiver with unbridled fear, he seems a little befuddled when it comes to delivering his comedic catch phrases. Everyone else is either pleasant, uneven, or forgettable. I'll let you figure out the specifics for yourself. Why should I have all the fun?

Before you decide to pick up this Big Bad Wolf from the local Humane Society, you should adequately prepare yourself for a meaty selection of cornball dialogue, a creature design that lacks both a believable creature and a solid design, and twenty minutes worth of material that smells a little too much like Wes Craven's outhouse floater Cursed for me to be anything other than completely uncomfortable. However, if you can overlook these flaws and embrace the film for what it is, the underlying theme of abusive relationships and how they affect the human condition will lovingly curl up at your misshapen feet.

And, possibly, piss on your trousers.

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!

“The Blue Comet” is an interesting episode because it’s simultaneously exactly what you’d expect and totally unexpected. After Tony was shot I concluded that the show was not likely to go out with a bang; more likely we’d see Tony fade away, life go on. After the slow fade of last season’s finale, and even through the first couple of episodes of this season, I still felt that way. But starting with “Walk Like a Man,” everything changed and since that episode, we’ve been on a march to this point, with everything falling apart, to the point that this episode leaves Tony alone in a safehouse, all his close friends dead, separated from his family. It’s an apocalyptic episode and another masterpiece from Chase and his team.

The show has teased a New York/New Jersey war for a long time, from Tony’s betrayal of Johnny Sack in “Whitecaps,” to the near war in last season’s “Kaisha,” and after the buildup last week, I was hoping that he wouldn’t stop things before they started again. This entire season has had a feeling of dread, and this episode took it to almost unbearable levels. The opening scene, with Silvio murdering Burt Gervasi, set up that this was going to be a big episode, though I was a bit unclear who he was murdering.

Being near the end of a series makes every threat a bit more real. Last season, you’d never have thought that Phil really might take out the top guys in Tony’s crew; now it was a real possibility, and as Bobby walked into that train store, he was already dead – it was just about waiting for it to happen. Things were so bad after Silvio died I legitimately thought Tony might go.

On a thematic level, the episode integrates a lot of things that have been going on under the surface for a while. Phil says that he needs to take out Tony Soprano’s “glorified crew” because they don’t really believe in the mythology of the mafia. It is the ritual that makes them more than gangsters; the ritual is the reason Phil spent time in prison, and if that’s meaningless, then so is his time in prison. That’s also why Tony isn’t a “real” gangster: Phil mentions his lack of jail time here and shut Tony down with it last episode with his already classic speech about compromising.

The entire series has been about Tony’s inability to live up to his father's and the cinema’s image of what a mobster should be. Now, Phil cracks on his team, marveling at the fact that Bobby is one of the top three guys. After the deaths of Sil and Bobby, Paulie is Tony’s only ally, and he’s constantly shown himself to be selfish, oblivious to the needs of others. Tony is left with basically no one, sitting alone in a room, holding a machine gun.

It’s almost surreal to have these murders actually happening. While I think Chase needed to pay off all this buildup, I do think it’s a bit of a resignation to go down this road. I had come to terms with the fact that the show wasn’t going to have a big ending, and it’s a surprise to see this happen. I would have liked to see Chase screw with people one final time and throw out a big dream sequence or something like that at the close, but this payoff is certainly better than something like “Kaisha.”

The dissolution of Tony’s crew fits with one of the central themes of the series, the decline of the Mafia. Even if Tony survives and either kills Phil or negotiates a peace settlement, he’s got no one left. All his successors are dead. It’s just a bunch of random thugs left, no one to carry the legacy. Can Tony run things like this? How will it work? The only person I could see stepping up to follow him would be Meadow, but I don’t think protocol would allow that.

On a familial level, we see Tony pushing away from them. He’s too much of a target, and now the only way to protect his family is to leave them. It felt final when they left the house, like they’ll never be back there. I do like the implications of him abandoning his suburban mansion to go back to an old neighborhood-style house.

This episode also sees AJ fail another test. I’m perhaps most curious to see how his story resolves. He seems completely incapable of dealing with the world. Will this latest outburst from Tony get him back on track or push him completely away? His arc this season has been phenomenal: here we see Tony finally treating AJ like his parents treated him, harsh, stripping him of his autonomy. He clearly blames Carmela for what happened to him and he’s trying to reverse some of that now.

This comes up in the fantastic Melfi scene, where she finishes his sentences as he goes through a rote list of complaints. She’s so cold here, I feared for her. Tony respects her too much to hurt her, but he is hurt by her abandonment of him at such a low point. It is questionable of her to dump him so suddenly, but that study clearly pointed out what was always apparent: that her work was helping him be a better criminal. Does someone like Tony deserve to be helped? Wouldn’t "progress" only make him worse? Melfi never seemed to think that she could save him, and she must have known that much of what she said led to violence. I always thought she was complicit in that – maybe she didn’t realize how much she was until Elliot told her.

I’m guessing that’s the last time we’ll see Melfi, barring some kind of closing montage with all the characters, and it’s a great way to go out. She realizes that her work isn’t going anywhere and that by treating him, she is in some ways complicit in what he’s doing. She tried to help him, but he wound up saying the same things and not facing up to the basic morality of his life. Unable to do that, she has a right to let him go.

The scene with Janice and Bobby’s kids was heartbreaking because Janice wasn’t reacting the way we’d expect her to. It was just quiet sadness, driving home that for all the over-the-top cool of his murder, what’s left are three kids who will be raised by someone who will resent them and hurt them. Bobby’s kids in particular will be scarred by these next few years. We’ve already seen Janice turning into her mother in “Soprano Home Movies” – this will only make things worse.

While that scene really got to me, the deaths themselves were curiously lacking in emotion. I think it’s because we were so aware of the impending death, it was almost a relief when it happened. Particularly in Bobby’s scene, the minute he walked into train shop, I knew he was gone, and it was excruciating sitting there, wondering when it would come. Christopher’s death was like that as well: he was on such a downward spiral, the death felt like an inevitability, not a surprise. There were moments of sadness surrounding all the deaths, but never in the traditional sappy way most TV shows do it.

Perhaps the best thing I can say about this episode is that it feels like a second-to-last episode. There’s a lot still up in the air, but this was the 84th piece of an 85-piece story. Ever since “Walk Like a Man,” the show has been as good as anything to ever air on TV or in the movies. It’s incredibly tense and perfectly focused on what matters. It’s hard to believe, but AJ has become one of the best characters on the show and Tony remains intensely fascinating. I really can’t wait to see what Chase does with the final chapter.