like a star, like a firefly

Of course it does! Just because the cow episode has disturbing implications and I felt bad for Nanami freaking out over a metaphor for her first period here in the egg episode, among other unhappy things in the comedy eps, it doesn't make stuff like Utena's snarky responses to C-ko or that Juri/Nanami scene disappear or stop being funny!

(I can see why you ship that. Not only was a lot of the conversation essentially about Juri's boobs, with Nanami looking like she was checking them out while struggling to hold her big heavy bowling ball bag, but she came across as having a budding gay crush on her by the end. At this point I'm more into the idea of Utena/Nanami myself, though; I really liked that moment in ep 23 where Nanami proposed that the student council should try teaming up with Utena to find out what was going on, with her showing herself willing to put aside her dislike of her for it. I'm looking forward to seeing a certain scene in ep 37 again, too.)

Heh, I don't blame you for skipping ep 29 entirely. I think it helps that those eps are fairly self-contained, so you don't miss too much that's crucial to the wider story.