The original code is perfectly readable until it does something completely unexpected, and the human parser has to start over to make sure they didn't miss anyt

The original code is perfectly readable until it does something completely unexpected, and the human parser has to start over to make sure they didn't miss anything. But unfortunately, the context for that "get the last 3 parts specifically" is never explained, so the entire line never makes sense. The human has to think a lot to come up with an (hopefully correct) explanation for the "why". The solution isn't to extract every token from the expression to separate lines, but to document the "why" of the unexpected token. That can take many forms: a new variable with a meaningful name, a new function with a meaningful name, or a meaningful comment that warns the reader about the upcoming reason for getting just the last 3 parts.