This show continues to be incredibly dense, you have the main plot point of the episode, you have random side stuff like Chirico's newtype flash, the over reaching plot the show is building to. So much is going on. Oh and all the battling participants demanding to know each other's rank and service record is a nice touch. It's a very logical and pragmatic thing to do for any character in that situation and is grounded in the the assumptions and realities of the setting.
But what this episode is about is Chirico dealing with some horrible PTSD. Which I think is kinda more genuine than say in gundam where Amuro half way through MSG has a few scenes going "boo hoo I am sacre, I don't want to fight, you can't make me". Here Chirico is a Veteran of countless battlefields and spent years fighting in an extremely brutal conflict. After all of that, after 6 months of relative quiet presumably, having to fight and kill exposes just how broken of a human being he is.
Right after his first PTSD episode, the show goes on to expand on what brought this about and Chirico's own mental state at the moment. The military didn't care about it's veterans, the veterans are just a bunch of kids with no real life experience and are just killing machines that have been thrown in the dump just like the ATs they piloted.
Overall I'd say so far Votoms is tacking a more ground and firm anti-war stance than Gundam ever did.
