THE QUEST FOR THE LOST GRAIL

It may be like trying to chisel the statue of Crazy Horse with a metal toothpick, but the final epic quest is to try to find the center piece, the keystone, the Rosetta Stone, or the Holy Grail that perfectly merges the desperate elements of the series into one cool unified theory.

Yes, it is like trying to obtain world peace.

In order to figure out this major puzzle, we need to find all the pieces.

In season one, the key elements were:

Flight 815, Sydney to LAX.
Flight 815 plane crash on the Pacific island.
The polar bear.
The smoke monster.
Rousseau being crashed on the island for 16 years, sending out a looping SOS in French.
Locke finding the Hatch

In season two, the key elements were:

The conflict with the Others.
Control of the Hatch between Jack and Locke.
The Numbers.
The other survivors, the Tailies.
The ghosts of the Dharma Initiative, and its scientific experiments.
Desmond being trapped in the Swan pushing a button every 108 minutes to avoid a catastrophic event.

In season three, the key elements were:

Benjamin Linus, the sociopathic leader of the Others.
Time travel elements begin to appear in the series.
Desmond is believed to be "unstuck" in time.
Survivors make contact with the Kahana freighter.

In season four, the key elements were:

Widmore's army arriving on the island.
The strange time differential from the ship to the island; the nose bleeds.
The frozen donkey wheel chamber and its apparent ability to "move the island."
The Oceanic 6 survivors and the plan to return to the island.

In season five, the key elements were:

The two concurrent timelines: one current and one in the 1974.
The three year gap to the reunion of the time lines in 2007 with Ajira flight 316.
The mission to assassinate Jacob, the island guardian.
Flocke, the MIB's impersonation of dead Locke.

In season six, the key elements were:

Back stories of Jacob, his brother, Crazy Mother,  MIB/smoke monster and Alpert.
The final conflict between MIB and Jacob with the rebooting of the "cork."
The deaths of Jacob by Ben, and MIB by Jack and Kate.
Hurley becoming the last island guardian.
Several 815 survivors take off on Ajira plane to leave the island.
The flash sideways universe where Flight 815 never crashed on the island; an after life limbo.

To get how the pieces could fit together, they need to be sorted into categories.

The factual pieces are:

Most visitors to the island came via crashes, and shipwrecks.
Many people like Rousseau, the castaways and others were trapped on the island.
The island was used for various experiments, including on polar bears.
The island contained various stations, such as the Hatch.
If one did not input the numbers into the Hatch computer, an alarm would sound and an incident would occur.

The science pieces are:

Rocket experiment and the doctor's body coming ashore showed the island was moving at a different time than the freighter.
One can only leave the island by a precise bearing or using the FDW.
The island caused inconsistent illness and death to visitors.

The supernatural elements were:

The smoke monster.
The immortal Jacob and Alpert.
The island moving in time and space (especially after Ben turned the wheel).
Certain characters were transported to 1974 while other characters in the same time-space did not.
The island's light source has unique properties (said to contain life, death and rebirth).
The sideways world was an alternative or parallel after life limbo where the characters did not remember their past island time.

So what was LOST? Based on the ending, a supernatural show. Based on the beginning, a survival show. In the middle, a science fiction mystery. There different genres trying to play well together like three spoiled toddlers fighting over one seat on the swing set.

Let's take the weekend to ponder what this all means.