I really hate the meaningless sacrifices of this episode. There's no emotional attachment to them so their deaths only serve as an attempt to up the ante (since Simon can't up the ante himself this episode). If they really wanted us to care about the pointless deaths, they would have killed a more important character. But instead they just weed out the red shirts. Even Yoko and the twin girl got saved from their sacrifices because they were more important.
Which leads to my larger problem with the episode: it was boring. I get having a calmer/despair episode, but the way the episode dealt with that depended entirely on how much you cared about the red shirts dying. Since I didn't care about it at all, I just found the episode boring: which is the worst crime a show like Gurren Lagann can commit.
Thankfully, for those same reasons, I like the next 3 episodes a lot more.
