I guess that Showtime decided to include these performance to bring a kind of traditional episodic structure. I don't think they tried that "Part 7" was more coherent: it was the end of the first arc and it's normal that the different plots start to fit each other.

But at the same time, yes, I felt this "Part 8" more episodic than others, what it's a big paradox because we have just faced one of the most surreal things ever seen in tv

In conclusion: It's a 18 hours movie, but with some features of tradional tv. Feautures that they enjoy destroying them. The music performances are the main example. They can appear at the end of the episode, at the beggining, or maybe be replaced by a man sweeping for a long while.

(sorry for my english)

About this 18-hour stuff...

Here in Sweden, one hour is 60 minutes. And I guess that goes for the rest of the world too. None of these episode has been 60 minutes so far. I guess that could suggest that maybe the last two episodes lasts a little longer than 60 minutes, if it's indeed an 18 hour Movie. Or else, 55 minutes x 18 episodes = 16,5 hours (in hundreds). 1,5 hours is missing.

If some of the episodes really is a little longer than 60 minutes, I wouldn't be surprized if they were filled with crazy/weird scenes like those we saw today in ep. 8.

Eric, I always took 18 hours as just an approximation, since it's 18 episodes lasting roughly an hour each. I doubt the episodes will get longer to make up for exactly 18 hours (although I wouldn't complain at all if they did). But I heard somewhere the 18th one is gonna be 2h long, so I guess that'd make it almost 18 hours already.