I loved this episode. The Sarah Palmer scene was a highlight, obviously, but I might have liked Freddie's story even more. "I fear I’ve snapped his Gregory." He clearly broke the guy's neck with his super-powered glove. What I love about Season 3 is you could not have predicted any of this stuff.
Freddie's story also has this fun bit (from EW):
“So I woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head, ran downstairs and had a cup…” Freddie says. He and James laugh – it’s the beginning of the middle section of “A Day in the Life” by the Beatles. I believe it’s the section most often attributed to Paul McCartney — a peppy description of a regular person’s day in the life, coming out of the mist of lysergic Lennon singing “I’d love to turn you on.”
The end of this section of the song, of course, is: “Somebody spoke, and I went into a dream.”
Sarah Palmer "biting back" distinctly reminded me of (Game of Thrones spoiler!) the dog lunging at Ramsay's face and chomping right into his jaw. Only difference is Sarah went a little lower. It was the same kind of sped-up lunge from a side view. Good stuff.
To Sleepless's question... Yes, I think people are a bit hypnotized and sedated by the vortex. And then there is some loss of memory. The same thing happened in South Dakota. In that episode, Gordon comments directly on the memory loss... although interestingly, you can will yourself to recover and hang onto the memory, as he did.
My favorite theory coming out of this episode is that the season will end with an epic fistfight between Dark Cooper and Freddie Sykes.