“Welcome to the wonderful world of not knowing what the hell’s going on.�

Kate’s awesome comment to Juliet last night mirrors our thoughts exactly: Just when you think you kind of have the “Lost� universe figured out, you realize you’re wrong.

But as usual, I’m sure Juliet knows more about what’s going on than she’s telling. Anyone else think that the Others’ gas attack on the Losties was an elaborate ruse to plant Juliet in the crash survivors’ camp?

After she and Kate wake up handcuffed together in the jungle, Juliet says that Ben did it because he loves mind games.

Well, so does she. She had the key to the cuffs all along, and lied at first when she said she didn’t know anything about the smoke monster.

Speaking of Ol’ Smokey – good to see him again, by the way – what were those camera-like flashes of light when he seemed to be “scanning� Juliet in the same way it did to Locke and Eko before? And if Kate, Locke, Sayid, etc. can jump over the security pylons, why can’t the smoke monster?

In other questions, how did Juliet know that the security perimeter was turned off? And what side of it to be on? Does the security pylons actually work?

When Mikhail died that nasty death a few weeks ago, more than a few fans thought he wasn’t really dead. I thought that was a silly theory at the time, but now I don’t know.

I DO know that Mikhail is back next week, though that might only be in Juliet’s flashback as she gives Sayid some info. (It’ll be interesting to see if Sayid’s threats work against Juliet, who gets more bad-ass every week. She totally kicked Kate’s butt in the beginning!)

It’ll also be interesting to see if a power struggle emerges back at the beach since Jack is now pro-Juliet, and Kate and Sayid clearly don’t trust her.

And now that I’m thinking more about it, if Juliet just woke up with Kate in the jungle, how did she definitely know that Jack and Sayid had been left behind in Othersville, too?

Then there’s the Kate-Sawyer connection.

Kate was on the run for killing her stepfather when she bumps into Cassidy, Sawyer’s old girlfriend who he conned out of her life savings.

Cassidy helps Kate meet with her mother, who’d turned her in to the Feds. Her mom tells her why: That you can’t help who you love, and that she can’t forgive Kate for doing such an awful thing – especially when Kate’s not even sorry.

That goes back to what Locke told Kate at the beginning of the episode, when he says he’d stood up for her with the Others until they told him what she did. (P.S. What deal did he cut with Ben to become an honorary Other?)

When Locke leaves, he tells Kate, “I’m sorry.� Is he dropping her a hint to try to make amends before it’s too late? After all, we know that folks like Eko who aren’t sorry for their misdeeds meet a bad end.

And amends was also the theme back on the beach, as Hurley cons Sawyer into making nice with the rest of the castaways. (Sawyer’s conversation with Claire was classic.)

Anyway, getting back to the seemingly random connections among the survivors, they’re becoming a bit more obvious now. Back at the beginning of the series, they were subtle: Like when a news story about Hurley winning the lottery is playing on the TV in the background as Jin visits the Environmental Secretary he’s supposed to intimidate.

Perhaps the show is finally leading up to the big reveal of why these particular people were on Oceanic 815.

Lastly, I just wanted to pass along a few Easter eggs (a.k.a clues) from last night that I stole from some folks posting to online forums who are way more observant than I am.

• “Walkin’ After Midnightâ€? by Patsy Cline is the song playing on the radio in Kate’s flashback when her car breaks down. Cline died in a 1963 PLANE CRASH at age 30—when she was at the height of her fame.

• Kate says she uses the names of saints as her aliases. Last night, it was “Lucy”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lucy, the patron saint of blindness. Wikipedia says there’s particular devotion in Scandinavian countries, where she’s called St. Lucia. (Ana Lucia, anyone?) Kate’s also used the name Monica in the past. “St. Monica”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Monica is the patron saint of patience, wives, mothers, and abuse victims. (The reason Kate killed her stepfather is because he abused her mom.)

• The code Juliet puts into the security system is 1-6-2-3. 16 and 23 are two of the island’s mystery numbers.

• Sawyer is reading “Watership Downâ€? on the beach. “The book is about”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down a group of rabbits whose community is threatened, but it has a theme of politics and power plays – appropriate reading material for the castaway community which is looking for a leader. (Now that Jack’s back to the beach dwellers next week, will the rest still see him as their leader? Or does Sawyer like the thought of taking charge himself, now that Hurley’s given him the idea?)

Can’t wait for next week! And does anyone else think the castaways should move into Othersville, now that those houses are empty?

And where do you think the Others went? Back to Others Island, or do they have yet ANOTHER hideaway?

(Photos courtesy of ABC.)