The thing is that since Tapas has infinite scroll on the website, and it's fairly quick to swipe between episodes on the app, the division into "episodes" isn't going to keep it from reading as one continuous narrative! (and honestly, more than 10-20 pages in one episode can get exhausting to scroll through, since the site doesn't save your place in between). I think the word choice confuses folks -- episodes really are treated more like "pages" in a traditional webcomic.
The front page has "popular" and "trending" sections, which have algorithms that depend on folks interacting with the latest episode. So when a bunch of folks subscribe, or like/comment on a new episode, that can put your comic briefly on the front page. You might get a little surge of activity -- it's not A NECESSITY but it's nice!! (this is another good reason to put each update in its own episode -- folks can't like an episode more than once, so you miss out on new activity if you're always editing an old episode)
I've played around on the app a lot less -- I know the daily snack gets a bunch of eyes on your comic, but I don't know anything about how that algorithm works!