It did. It skipped an entire battle, but I thought it was a wonderful build-up episode. It had the atmosphere spot-on, and it really made the series take an even steeper turn into the darkness.
Spoiler:
And the pictures on the official site for ep 22.....
They also made the mysterious man's identity really obvious...even more so than the novel. And they skipped out on his ojisan image and drew him the way he was in Daiyuuden. LOL
I'm really, really looking forward to the next episode, because it covers all the juicy stuff.
And it's also Ryner's birthday today.