Going into the episode, I was expecting a full fanservice debacle. Color me pleasantly surprised because I don't think it was nearly as bad as people are painting it to be--and I'm very much anti-fanservice. The Kallen scene was practically blink-and-miss-it. To really get anything from it, you'd have to pause the scene and stare (though I imagine some people [read: fanboys] did *facepalm*). The C.C. fanservice, on the other hand, did bother me a bit. But on the whole, it really wasn't that bad.
I'm in agreement that the chat between Zero and the Eunuchs was distracting during the episode. I was trying to follow the conversation and missed half the battle. I'm just glad it came up as being important, so there was a reason the fighting was interrupted.
What happened between C.C. and Anya there? And we saw the mini-Lelouch image again, so I imagine that's going to come up down the line. Seems Anya's got some secrets that could end up being important.
When Lelouch activated his Knightmare, I totally thought of Death Note with the massive flourishing. The intense defensive capabilities were pretty impressive, though. And Xingke protecting Tianzi was great.
I got a good laugh at the women ganging up at Diethard for suggesting marrying off Tianzi. And Lelouch has to back off, not knowing what to do. Good times.
Sayoko... just kissed Shirley. Pardon me while I fall over laughing.
Seriously, though, I couldn't stop laughing when Anya and Zino showed up at Ashford. Totally priceless. Man, I adore Zino. He's a riot.
I'm not thrilled that we're having another Ashford episode so soon, but I can only hope that having another light-hearted episode so soon means we're going to be getting some heavy stuff for the remainder. There is a lot of stuff left to cover, so it doesn't seem like they have much time to devote to episodes like these. Guess we'll see.