LOST Pre-Game: “The Substitute”
Just for storytelling purposes, I think Timeline X is going to have to influence the real Lostaways at some point. Whether the two merge, or Timeline X answers questions about the standard timeline, or whether somebody co-exists between the two, there’s got to be a reason why we’re seeing it.
As Mysterious Don pointed out, there had to be something that led Juliet to believe that “it worked”. She either went crazy, or she has some awareness of Timeline X. And it could be that she glimpsed it in her final moments, or it could be that somebody dropped by at the bottom of the pit and told her. I still like the idea that there’s only one Desmond, and he drifts between the two timelines – for a guy who pops into his own past on occasion, that’s not such a stretch. Or White Oracle could be involved. Eloise knows how things are supposed to turn out. This is a woman who made sure that her own son went to the Island so that her past self could kill him, because that’s the way things happened and that’s the way they have to happen. More impressively, she caught up to Desmond in the past and made sure he didn’t propose to Penny.
