Episode was friggin' epic. This is why I'm watching the anime even know I've already read the manga. And yes, does seem like a recap. Why? No clue. Does anyone have any tangible theories as to why they air them? I can understand a recap for the previous season when you're starting a new one, but after 13 episodes?
Production issues. They've been having those before, but we didn't really see it. From what I read, earlier episodes were aired on some channels without them being fully finished (probably close to how
Bakemonogatari eventually became nothing but static images). It's also why a lot of episodes contained so many stills.
Apparently, this show takes a LOT of work to make, so the recap episode serves to give the animators more time to work ahead.
And no, the recap episode doesn't count towards the episode count, hence why it's called 13.5 and not 14.