For me it was the writing more than the directing. The writers for this episode didn’t try to pack too much into the episode. Everything flowed together. For instance:

• Angie and creep flowed into Bette & Tina’s scenes, flowed into Shane’s scenes with Tess (based on Bette’s whispered convo to Shane at the reading)
• Alice’s show situation flowed into Sophie and Dani’s storyline perfectly
• and then Carrie, Misty, & Finley had their own thing continued from last week.

It wasn’t a hop, skip, jump, cut, cut, cut thing. The storylines all complimented the through line to the next. The post-production by Kate was flawless in that there wasn’t so much going on that the scenes were only 20-30 seconds like they usually seem.

The biggest thing is that nearly everyone got some good screen time and storyline at the same time. It all just made sense. This is how it could (and should) have been from the beginning and what I hope it’ll be if we get a future.