First off, thanks for the Juliet picture.
Having read your last post and watched "LA X" a second time (thanks, abc.go.com!), I just thought I'd jot down a few random thoughts.
One thing from the episode that seems kind of mysterious is the cut on Jack's neck in the new timeline, especially since alterna-Jack himself seemed confused about it as well. Here's what I noticed watching it the second time: The cut was on the left side of his neck. In the old timeline, after they jumped forward to 2007 and saw the remains of the Swan station, Sawyer kicked Jack. Where? On the left side of his head, around the neck and jaw. Perhaps it wasn't just hair styles that carried over from the old timeline to the new.
Jack's cut doesn't seem to be the only example of possible connections between the two timelines. When we first see alterna-Jack on Oceanic 815, he seems a little disoriented, like he expected to be somewhere else. It wasn't full-blown "Who are you? What am I doing here?" panic à la Desmond in "The Constant," of course, but it also wasn't what you'd expect from a person who'd already been sitting on that very plane, in that very seat, for several hours. If anything, it was more like '90s Desmond in "The Constant," who was a little disoriented when his consciousness returned to the '90s but described his 2004 experiences merely as a vivid dream. I'm not suggesting that alterna-Jack is undergoing consciousness-jumping like Desmond did, but he certainly seemed unsettled, like he sensed something was wrong but didn't know what.
Something that I think we can chalk up to consciousness-jumping is Juliet's last words. Her apparently nonsensical talk right before she died sounded a lot like Charlotte's when she was dying from the time travel. While Charlotte thought that she was in the past, maybe Juliet thought she was in the new timeline; she realized this immediately before dying, that a new timeline had been created in which they never went to the Island, and thus realized that "it worked." I definitely think that we can look forward to interaction between the two timelines in the future—even physical interaction, if my theory about Jack's neck is correct.
I'm also strongly leaning toward the position that alterna-Locke didn't go on his walkabout. Not only does it make no more sense for the walkabout organizers in the new timeline to let a paraplegic man participate than it does in the old timeline, but the writers made the point of having Boone ask him, "You're not pulling my leg, are you?" when Locke tells him about it. If he did lie, that would definitely add an interesting wrinkle to an otherwise very sympathetic version of Locke. (Speaking of those two, I liked your link to the Lost version of the love that dare not speak its name, a.k.a. "When John Met Boone.")
Regarding what you said about the similarities between this season and the first, in an excellent series on CHUD, "Lost: The Rewatch Column," the writer notes a mirroring going on in the series's seasons, with a number of similarities between the first and sixth seasons, between the second and fifth, and between the third and fourth. For example, Sayid's and Ben's respective positions in the second season ("Henry Gale" locked up in the Swan station, Sayid subjects him to some "advanced interrogation methods," but he breaks out thanks to Michael's betrayal; also, Sayid is the first to suspect what "Henry" really is) and the fifth (Sayid locked up in the Dharmaville jail, interrogated by Oldham, but breaking out thanks to little Ben's betrayal of his people; Sayid finally shoots Ben in part because he suspects what the boy will become).
I'm not sure it's the case, but I'm intrigued by your idea that the two timelines could correspond to the two beings battling it out, one light and one dark, one voluntarist and one determinist.
I'm sorry, though, to hear that you didn't find "LA X" satisfying. As I've said before, I gave up watching Lost with a set of expectations that needed to be met a long time ago; at this point, I'm just along for the ride. As for why we should care about the two timelines, I guess we'll see as the season progresses, seeing as we're only one episode into the two-timeline scenario; we had as much reason to care about Desmond one episode into the second season. I, for one, had a blast and can't wait to see where the series goes now that they've upped the ante this way.
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