Aiya, when I saw part of episode one before it aired, I was hoping they weren't going to bombard us with another set of concurrent, but separate stories (1977 + 2008 was a little much).
For those who missed them, Desmond was reading Salman Rushdie's "Midnight Children," and the French guy was reading "Fear and Trembling." I've been waiting for a Kierkegaard egg since I started watching.
Desmond was clearly acting weird during the flight, and he's passenger 325, which disrupts the original 423 (screw Shannon being written off. They probably wrote for 325 passengers before they found out the actress couldn't guest star). As far as I'm concerned, this lends weight to my prediction concerning his importance. However, alt Locke and Hugo also seemed off to me. Hurley simply because he wasn't acting paranoid (his timeline would sorta be ruined by the loss of the island, unless he's really our Hurley). Locke felt like Flocke to me, especially when talking to Boone and Jack. Perhaps Jacob's nemesis really will succeed in his quest, assuming his home is off the island (after watching certain parts again, I could have Desmond and Locke backwards). Of course, that begs the question of why Jacob "baptized" Sayid. Jacob doesn't strike me as one who would seek vengeance, but Sayid now qualifies as an exploitable loophole.
@Gat
It would be a little odd if the water was Jacob's version of the smoke monster guise. That would pretty much mean that everyone's been "touched" by Jacob ("okay, Sawyer, now show us where the creepy immortal touched you").
p.s. Finally, that frakking guitar case has been bugging me for a long time.
p.p.s. Dunno why they wasted time telling us that the nemesis was the smoke monster. We already knew that, and there's no way the writers can make me feel pity for the jerk that killed Eko.
