Gee. I guess I sort of get what they meant in that interview when saying this kind of episode could never happen in any other anime...
Spoiler for Not really spoilerish, but anyway...:
This calls for a "zetsubou shita". You just knew from the lack of OP (and the preview, of course) that this episode would be heavy, but that was more. Heck, I couldn't even get excited for the Shrade/Cayenne moments, and that's saying a lot. We knew we had a big turn coming at the half-way mark, but that's a complete 180 - though, at least, it was still done in Aquarion fashion and it didn't feel out of place, so that's yet another challenge I'd say the anime has passed. Maybe not as brilliantly as the first half, but it wouldn't be fair of me to really compare the two.
Molloy, you could have avoided that pun for one of your very few lines lol.
EDIT: I just realized that they had Sazanka animated in the nenshin gattai with all the other characters who've already gattai'd. I doubt they'd do it only for this episode, so I imagine this more or less confirms a Sazanka gattai in the future?