I acutally felt like this episode was better. More focused. Seems like they reset the board with the Christmas ep and were able to focus on characters they actually like.
They got rid of Suede and subbed in Darnell (fan fave and the best character on the show this season), focused on Emmit and Keisha, brought back Kandy, and got Trig back on his tranny shit (NH) which is obviously a story they want to tell with the character. Even gave the kids something to do.
One of the many problems of this show is they just have way too many characters. Jettisoning Suede and Lalas characters, writing out the "never be more than just a friend" dude that was with Keisha last season, hopefully means they can pare things down some.