I found Episode 8 incredibly entertaining, but that is pretty much exclusively because I never approached the series in the mindset of discovering the truth - hell, for the longest time I had no idea what I was supposed to be "doing."
I wasn't "doing" much either, in that I never sat down and made a serious attempt to solve all of the mysteries; I was mostly just along for the ride. But I admired Battler because he was trying to discover the truth. If that makes any sense.
Incidentally though, I disagree that Battler always sought the truth. His primary motivation always seemed to be denying a particular truth - that the crimes were committed by witches. He was never seeking THE ONE TRUTH like Ange. He was happy just denying the existence of witches - I think he felt that not doing so would cheapen his family's struggles. I might be misremembering, though.
He wasn't focused on finding the culprit like Ange. But I still think that valuing truth is what made him deny witches so strongly. Like, in ep 5, pinning everything on Natsuhi would've been an easy way to deny witches, but he wouldn't do that -- because it wasn't true either.
I can't say there was a character I disliked more after the episode ended, which I couldn't say that about for any other episode. (Some characters stayed the same, but nobody went down.)
Personally, I came out liking several characters less. Battler and Ange, as mentioned (Ange's trick ending was great, but not enough to redeem her). Krauss/Eva/Kyrie dropped some, because I like them as manipulative bastards and seeing them full of family togetherness was kind of jarring. Kinzo dropped for similar reasons.
Gohda's the only character who I like more now, because of his A++ scumplay.
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another place and time, without a great divide, and we could be flying deadly high