I’m not sure if it is on purpose or by accident, but the producers/creators/writers of Lost have certainly upped the love-hate ante in its final season.

Last night’s episode was alternately really good and really frustrating, which pretty much describes my feelings about the show since Season 2. (Season 1, as we all lovingly remember, was nirvana.)

The focus of "Lighthouse" ("How come we’ve never seen that before?") was ostensibly Jack, although Claire and Hurley and Jacob figured quite prominently in it as well. Let’s start with Jack.

Jack on the island is typically Jack, sitting around the Temple courtyard (where all the cool kids hang out, binding bamboo poles together with vines like they do on Survivor and dressing like Bolsheviks) feeling sorry for himself and all the bad decisions that he’s made. He and Samurai Guy have a nice moment, and then he and Sayid have an awkward moment, and then we cut to Miles and Hurley playing tic-tac-toe (genius!!) and of course, Hurley could eat. Enter Jacob.

I love the relationship between Jacob and Hurley. It’s like, they totally get each other, dude. Hurley takes copious notes on his sweaty arm, including exactly how to push poor Jack’s many buttons to get him to comply with Jacob’s wishes, and they are off on their adventure through the jungle, just like the good old days. It even includes a stop at the Caves, where the Lostaways holed up that first season. Shades of Shannon!!! (And don’t forget that Jack tells Hurley he came back to the island to get "fixed." That’s important. Only a man of faith could think that.)

Meanwhile, New Now Jack back in L.A., thinks dear old dead dad might be visiting Berlin, mom (oh, Veronica Hamel, how we love you and the way you rock the same hairstyle you had on Hill Street Blues) continues to hit the sherry while hunting for the will, and Jack has a kid! A teenager named David who, shockingly, is sulky and uncommunicative. We do not meet Mom.

David turns out to be a piano prodigy, which Jack did not know, being the great dad that we knew he would be. At the recital, Jack bumps into Samurai Guy, who is also a father of a pianist. This is the first time that someone from New Island Now has appeared in New L.A. Now, which I’m sure is significant although I have no idea why.

And then comes the kicker that ties New Now and Island Now and Jacob and Jack and Christian together: Jack tells David that "my dad always told me I did not have what it takes." Which is what Jacob told Hurley to say to Jack to get him to go to the lighthouse.

At the lighthouse, the castaways names are written next to Desmond’s numbers again, this time on the lighthouse light-mirror-compass-thingy, and when Hurley turns it to Jack’s number (23), Jack sees his childhood home in the reflection, causing him to go all Sammy Sosa on the place. Which is apparently what Jacob wanted. And by the way: Who is "coming" to the island? Des? Widmore?

Now we also find out that Jacob staged the whole trip to get Hurley and Jack away from the Temple, which Smoky Locke is planning to invade with his army of 1 (Sawyer). Except Smoky Locke has another soldier, Crazy Claire, who, it turns out, is less Rousseau and more Kathy Bates in Misery plus Jack Nicholson in The Shining. (BTW, I totally knew she was going to axe that guy.)

Claire has been running around the island tormenting and slaying The Others in a desperate search for Aaron. Which really doesn’t make sense, because why didn’t she just go back to the beach after she escaped from The Others and their truly awful Infection Testing Program. Unless she did, and the castaways were already gone.

Jin, reading the crazy in Claire’s eyes quite well, is hoping to simply get out of the situation with just one severe bear trap injury (that’s going to leave a mark) but when Smoky Locke shows up and gives Claire the crinkly-eyed smile, you know that’s not going to turn out well.

So, what do you think? What does Jacob need Jack to figure out? Do you want to hug Hurley every time he shows up on screen? Are Miles and Sayid going to buy it during Smoky Locke’s invasion of the Temple? Are bamboo poles an effective fighting tool? Is Claire infected or just nuts? And doesn’t Kate know that you should never fill your canteen from a pool of standing water?