Really? Huh, I was absolutely floored by that. It reminds me of when you're on the other side of a fight (like Carmy coming out of season 2) you start replaying moments in your head, not just of the fight but random moments in your life in this long stream of consciousness while you're trying to get your shit figured out. To me this episode conveyed that emotion better than any I've seen in the past. Plus it fleshes out his working relationship with chef Terry making the impact of the news later in the season matter more.
It was certainly odd to do that as the first episode of the new season but that episode was anything but "filler"; it added in a ton of the missing pieces the show hadn't gone over yet. I get the format and not many conversations was odd but the episode flew by for me and was cool to finally meet his actual mentor and not just Joel McHale
This is exactly how I felt too. All filler that didn’t serve any sort of real purpose (character building I guess, maybe, but they were doing just fine with that prior to making a whole season of it).
So disappointing. I mean the episodes themselves were ok, but very meh compared to the prior two seasons.