Amidst all the little mysteries and wonderment that make up Lost, a new tensely-paced over-arching mystery has overtaken the show, and luckily for us, this is a mystery I feel quite confident the creators will actually resolve. That is, how do all the Oceanic 6 get off the island together. Not, I should point out, the over-arching mystery of what happens to everyone else, which is obviously looming in the background like a polar smoke monster. But last night’s episode was wound so tight, with everyone moving in such fractured, hectic directions. It was difficult to keep track of where everyone was at any given time, and while I have faith that the season finale in two weeks will solve most of these questions, at least for the time being we’re stuck with a fragmented cast. I’ve compiled a running list of where people are throughout the show.

For those of you who learn cartographically, I’ve included a map after the jump.

This is drawn to scale, and is perfect.

So disparate! So Lost! I really hope that they don’t pull a Heroes, which is when a super dramatic cliff-hanger plot twist is resolved within five minutes be everyone just ignoring that it happened. That’s why I could never watch that show. In other Lost news, I read somewhere yesterday that they might shift the temporal center of the show away from the island. In the first four seasons so far, the temporal center is the island with flash backs and flash forwards, but they might permanently shift it into the future present tense (thank you, high school French grammar). I think this is a dumb idea. And I know that my ideas are important to the creators of Lost, so don’t worry, guys, I just nipped that one in the bud.

The season finale of Lost airs on ABC at 9PM EST on May 30th.