Really? I thought it was unbelievably dull until the scene where they were watching the brain scan video. At first I thought that scene was kind of ridiculous, but it slowly grew on me until it became really powerful. I think mostly that was due to Noah Emmerich's performance. After that I thought it got kind of interesting, at least attempting an honest examination of hope vs. despair and whether hope was really the best response to an apocalyptic crisis. That's all good meaty stuff and if the episode didn't exactly explore the topic to its full potential, at least it tried.
There were some more of the patently ridiculous logic-holes and continuity questions that have been a problem throughout the series so far, though: in particular, the fact that the zombies that were rising up to devour them at the end of the previous episode apparently all disappeared or got bored or something and somehow ceased to be a threat while our heroes could stand around in the doorway to the CDC gawping at the beginning of the episode; then at the end of the episode, apparently the CDC is built to self-destruct in a cataclysmically powerful explosion but the windows can't withstand a simple hand grenade? Which I guess means that the people who designed the place weren't really concerned with containing the explosion and, you know, ensuring people just hanging around in the parking lot didn't get hurt? Seems kind of dumb to me.
The pre-credit opening, the flashback to Shane in the hospital, was fantastic though. That's what's been so frustrating about this season: there've been some jaw-droppingly magnificent moments but there's been so much stuff that's just been straight-up hack work, too.