For those who are hyper-critical of that episode... let's take a step back and consider what we have here.
This is a TELEVISION SHOW. Not Star Wars. Not Avengers: Infinity War. It's a TV show. Like Grey's Anatomy or CSI. People's expectations on production quality are grossly high. It's amazing what they have done for a freaking 1-hr TV episode. Cut them some slack.
We are only seeing maybe 9 hours of the lives of 20-30 people. You can't show everything. Your preference for which specific 9 hours you want to see isn't my preference isn't the storytellers preference.
Storylines... There are an infinite number of ways for a story to be developed. Only the limits of the human imagination restrict us. Could they have chosen better ones? Their story vs an infinite number of variations? I'll take the field that there are better ones. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy the one they settled on.