Having watched the writer's commentary on youtube, it does seem to be more episode 2's writer Diya Mishra's idea (certainly she sounded very ethusiastic about it). It is actually Kevin Smith's fault that her big scene was cut. He freely admits that he wrote the episode 1 script as being so long, his plot carries over into the first five minutes of episode 2, which was supposed to start with the Snake Mountain flashback.Okay, I went in there fully expecting Smith to include her simply for the potential drug references, but the man surprised me.
Maybe if the series gets a physical release one day, they'll put the storyboard animatic out there.