New to Gundam person here and, while I certainly felt that there was big gaps, I was able to follow well enough to catch up. Pasting what I wrote in the !gundam@ani.social thread:

I am sure that I am only getting the surface level comprehension of this recap. Even I can tell that it was probably packed full of references to things I have no knowledge of. However, it was good enough. The one big question mark I still have from this sequence of events is what the hell happened to Char that caused him to go rogue? I am sure it is something that will be explored during this show (I am guessing it has something to do with the kira-kira vision that happened in the first episode).