I was always pissed off that Libby was killed. I really liked her character; thought she had a lot of depth. Nevermind that Hurley so totally deserved to have some love in his life, too.

But we’ve always had hints that Libby was more important to the overall storyline than her one-season stint implied.

She was in Hurley’s looney bin, though we never knew why. And Hurley never realized she was there, either. And she (or her doppelganger) gave Desmond the boat that got him to the island – we’ve never really found out what that was about.

But Libby is an important piece of the puzzle, which should have been obvious from our Desmond-centric (PENNNAAAHHH!) episode last week.

Love is the key, sorta, somehow. And she and Hurley were, indeed, soulmates. They were in love. And her kiss brought Hurley’s memories flooding back. And made me cry. Don’t tell me it didn’t make you cry, too, because if you say you didn’t, you’re lying. Or you have no soul. Your choice.

The thing is, with love being the key to the island bleed-through, it raises an interesting conundrum: who does Kate love? And who loves Kate? And will we see Juliet again? Will she help bring back Sawyer’s memories? I’d SO prefer Juliet being the yin to Sawyer’s yang than Kate.

But if Juliet doesn’t come back, this is what I think is going to happen with the three of them: Kate and Sawyer. And Jack is going to become the new Jacob. He’s accepted his fate, we saw last night.

He’s stopped trying to fix everything, and just do the best he can. He has accepted that he can’t control everything and everyone. He even has the name – Jack/Jacob? Not a coincidence.

Sorry, so back to last night:

In our alternate reality, Libby’s in the crazy house because of our original timeline. Which really makes me wonder why she was there originally. Remember how Lance Reddick visited her there in the original timeline? Speaking of, what’s up with him? Are we going to see Abbadon again?

Desmond obviously has the manifest now, as he managed to find Hurley (poor Hurley!) at Mr. Cluck’s and convince him to pursue Libby. Hurley knew he knew her, just didn’t know how or why. Desmond can be ever-so-convincing (and dreamy!) and it didn’t take much for him to get Hurley to ask her out.

Of course, a picnic. On a beach. Then, The Kiss.

It wasn’t overly dramatic or passionate, but it was a token of love from Libby to Hurley, across time and space. All the memories of their other life came flooding back.

I want her to appear to Hurley on the island, though. I want him to have a chance to talk to her again, in the real timeline.

Speaking of, the theory that the island is purgatory certainly got a big boost last night, with Michael explaining he couldn’t leave and confirming that the whispers were of the dead who could not move on from there.

Gee, sounds like purgatory to me.

I did feel so sorry for Michael when he apologized to Hurley. He only ever did what he did so he could be with Walt. And in the end, the Island took him anyway, and took Walt from him. I am kind of bothered, however, that the mystery of Walt has sort of been cast aside. I know he grew up because, well, he was a kid and now he’s a young man in OUR real life, but this is Lost. There’s gotta be some way to explain that all away. Maybe his special powers enabled him to age in the real timeline as opposed to the island timeline.

Everything else

• I hated that Miles went with Richard. He and Hurley need to hang more. Not surprised that Ben went with him. Should get interesting.

• Didn’t care much that Ilana got blown up as she was getting a bit annoying, though I am kind of curious about her and would like to know more about her background. And I wonder if she’s really dead, or was she just blown off the island and the scene where we saw Jacob visiting a very injured Ilana in a rustic hospital somewhere was her recovering from her injuries? Hmm? C’mon, this is Lost. It’s totally possible, and you know it.

• Fascinating juxtaposition between Desmond killing Locke (I’m not 100 percent sure if Locke is dead) off-island and Flocke tossing Des down the well on-island. I didn’t get what Des was going to do until he started his car. But I knew that Flocke was gonna toss him down the well. I kept hoping I was wrong, but… However, I know, even without seeing “next week on” that Desmond’s still alive. He did what he did because he knows how things have to be. He wouldn’t have gone with Flocke to the well if he didn’t know how it was going to turn out. I truly believe that.

• Sayid totally gives me the creeps. What role does he have left to play? I wonder if we’ll see Shannon off-island and she’ll bring all the memories flooding back for him? I hope. I have always loved Sayid’s character and would be so sad to see him remain this shell of himself.

• Dr. Chang! Did you not jump out of your chair when you saw him introducing Hurley? I love all these little things they’re doing to bring back all the characters, major and minor, we’ve seen over the past several years. Of course, he’s Miles’ father, and this is the hospital where Charlotte works. I feel the tension building toward a resolution and I’m both terribly excited and terribly sad to see it all coming to an end.

• Remember, I called it: Jack becomes the new Jacob.

• By the way, why is Hugo’s nickname Hurley?