Distractions: Retroactive Continuity

Ret Cons are usually bad. Usually if a show pulls a ret con it means that someone changed their mind and the result can be worse than the original explanation. But what if an entire show was one gigantic, intricate ret con? And not a "it was all a dream!" ret con.
Watching Lost takes a lot of working memory-- there can be completely baffling scenes that really have nothing at all to do with anything in the current episode but can be addressed much later on. By the third season I found that the only way I was going to cope with the show not making any sense in its current form was to not think about it much while the episode was running (why is Ben in the ffff-rr-reakin' Tunisian desert three years into the future!? Who cares! Keep watching!). This was a managable coping mechanism that didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the characters (Aww look at Ben and Hurley share a candy bar-- WTF is up with that cabin-- awww).

Left: Ben's been manuevered into doing something he doesn't understand.

Each episode is like Swiss cheese, peppered with not necessarily plot holes (though copious amounts can be found under scrutiny, but I have a high tolerance for holes due to Doctor Who), but significant gaps of information. The amount of questions starting with "Why?" generated by the befuddled and beguiled fans has only increased exponentially. Questions that have been answered have often times been the obvious ones. But on my part I've kept all of the questions at the back of my mind because they had been getting as irritating as a swarm of mosquitos. As the twists in Lost's labyrinthine narrative get ever twistier (and more recursive? and more inverted?) I'm free to be manipulated by each scene as the show sees fit. Like Ben, I have no clue what the fuck is going on but I know it's bad news for everyone.

However, sometimes I feel like this method removes some of the puzzle box appeal of watching. Back in season 3, about the time I gave up trying to figure out what was going on and let it wash over me like a fever dream, I gave the show an ultimatum: kill the rest of the characters I care about and it's nuts to you. This attitude is probably what keeps the writers from killing off Legacy Jack and Kate even though they've ceased to be interesting in the slightest (though Bizarro Jack seems like a much better person) out of sheer fear of alienating the last bastion of Jack/Kate shippers. This gave the show not much to go on in my mind because I found it highly unlikely at the time that Desmond, Sayid, or Ben would make it very far before falling into a nasty bed of bamboo pikes or something. On the other hand I was also ignoring the complexity of the show. There may have been all manner of ret cons or call backs into previous seasons that I missed.

SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT FOLKS
There have been two big-ass ret cons so far. One is that Desmond, having killed one of the last surviving members of the Dharma Initiative (also a small ret con) over a dispute with his sail boat, crashed the original survivor's plane by not pressing a button. That was a big WTF moment in itself because then you realize that the island has massive physical power.
The second ret con was that the newly seen Jacob affected each of the main character's lives in a more or less pivotal way (going from reviving Locke after a fatal fall on down to getting Jack's candy bar unstuck from a vending machine), which you can really only assume that caused each of them to walk blindly into the path that Jacob chose for them, mainly, being on the island when he wanted them to.
(Thinking as I type-- The Nameless Nemesis wants to leave, but Jacob's been all over the place-- what's with that?)
Almost numberless little ret cons have also occurred but I only know the ones that have been pointed out, my favorite being that the field that Sawyer and Kate are obliged to clear of rocks in season 3 becomes the runway that allows the second hapless plane (albeit this time piloted by someone who knows the drill) to land safely on the auxillary island. When Sawyer asks what the hell they're building a runway for Juliet answers drily that it's "for the aliens".
For all of my willing blindness, there's still a great deal of even little things in disparate episodes spanning seasons that make more sense now then they did then. We're all waiting for the final ret con. The problem is, of course, that we'll really won't know the full picture until the end (if the writers are so generous) and then it will be over!

While some fan-theory read-in-to-it-too-much ret con can be expected (I just read some wacky thing about the color red that was slightly too much), this guy can make a startling amount of sense given the source material.