The Hubble parameter--the temporal curvature of the universe--changes. As space stretches faster and faster, the distance over which the accumulated Hubble expansion exceeds the speed of light gets smaller and smaller. For example, if the Hubble constant suddenly became 300,000,000 s-1, then you couldn't see any objects farther away than one meter, by virtue of the fact that anything beyond that would have a speed greater than c relative to you. Any light that happened to be in transit from any more distant object at the time of the phase transition would be redshifted away to invisibility.
Imagine you're driving in a long line of cars. You can see cars that are a certain distance away. As you drive, you start to go around a gentle curve, and you lose sight of some of the most distant cars. The curve gets tighter, and you lose more cars still. Then, you go around a very tight curve, and you can only see one car ahead of you.
What happened? Did those other cars suddenly zoom away? Did you go backwards? Did it suddenly get foggy?
The analogy isn't quite perfect, because the car example is based on spatial curvature rather than on temporal curvature, but it conveys the correct idea that the temporary loss of contact is a geometrical thing.
Now, how again would this lead to effects preceding causes?
Well, inflation flattens rather than steepens curvature. And things still have to travel faster than light to not been seen "after" they have been seen.