1 Lambert: We need to go back and find Alvissa.
2 Mordekai: But we're making real progress on the quest! Why go back?!
3 Lambert: It's good roleplaying! What do you think the GM would rather see? Roleplaying or progress?
4 GM: It's not a dichotomy!!

No, in a dichotomy, you either get one or the other. So you at least get one of them.

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2017-12-27 Rerun commentary: If they stopped for a moment to think about this, they would realise that Alvissa is more likely to make progress without them than with them, so their most sensible course of action is to try to continue the quest, in an effort to catch up to her.

A dichotomy, by the way, is strictly defined as a partition of things into two sets which are (a) mutually exclusive, and (b) between them include everything under consideration. So in a dichotomy, everything is either A or B - nothing is neither A nor B, and nothing is both A and B.

So if everyone on the plane has fish or chicken, then that's a dichotomy, but if someone has the lasagne, or if someone in first class decides to have fish and chicken, then it's not a dichotomy.