Ep. 8 is pretty much just to push the story forward, give the player some idea the kind of crap Ash has dealt with in her past. Yes it has no choices and to me, that's fine. It gives the player insight to her life and prepares you for the inevitable shit-show involving the grandfather and Lynn that's bound to happen in the next episodes.
So choices or not, the whole thing made sense to me. The player had 7 episodes to build up relationships/corruption with the girls. Now we get story, the intro to Lynn, who'll be coming around more to the house or Ash's work, and the sticky predicament the MC gets put in, which will I'm sure have some effect on Emily and possibly the MC's relationship with her.
Probably a few "choice episodes" of that, then possibly, to end the game, a "story episode" of Julie, then "choice episodes" on trying to find her, then probably the ending
That's how I see it happening