Aye. It seems to be the established way of lenghtening this arc: introducing history lessons here and there. History lessons that have no relevance what-so-ever to the main story. Instead of concentrating on the doll binding and summoning, which would have been somewhat relevant, they just introduced some random dolt who even got killed, and thus won't make a later appearence. Fillers inside a filler, it almost feels like sometimes.
Well, the next episode, an hour long special for a change, seems to be better based on the preview.