How "Lost" is Juliet?

In last night's Lost, Kate was gassed by the Others. When she woke up, she was some distance away from their village and handcuffed to Juliet. After a long trip back they found the guys (Jack and Sayid) still sleeping from the gas.

So what's going on? Why send the girls off to the wilderness?

Plus, part way through we found out that Juliet had the key all the time.

This implies that she was somehow in on the whole thing. She wasn't just gassed and dumped like Kate. She may have helped them carry Kate out then locked on the cuffs herself.

Why? The obvious reason is to have a chance to bond with Kate or at least let her know that she eliminated herself from the running with Jake when she had sex with Sawyer. Jack certainly acted that way. He insisted that Juliet come with them and fell in beside her, ignoring Kate.

The guys were not a part of this so they were given a stronger or second dose of the gas. The were still out the next day, at least 12 hours after Kate woke up.

So the Others have a spy in the midst of the castaways. Again.

Other events - Hurley came pretty close to telling Sawyer that he was going to be voted off the island.

Hurley says that sawyer is the new leader (how will Jack react to that?) but Hurley seems to be the one who really runs things. He's the most organized. He's the one who gets the others to do stuff. He's the social director. But he doesn't like conflict so he sets others up as the official leader.

He's also able to con Sawyer. That's twice (the ping pong game was the first).