It's unfortunate that they pulled it, because it's otherwise an extremely strong episode, and kind of important for the changing (Chang-ing?) relationships with Chang and er... Chevy Chase (can't remember the character name). I too saw it fairly recently in lockdown.
I feel like rather than pulling it, they should have put a non-skippable health warning on it. The problem is the normalization of blackface as "funny" thing. If it's pointed out that it's not actually okay, in words, then even the dimmest frat-boy who might otherwise see this episode as an excuse will have to face up to what he's doing.
With all the blackface episodes of various shows being pulled it is interesting though that the vast majority were just worthless uses of it for low-brow comedic effect, or even worse, just so a white actor could imitate a black character in a rather stereotyped and gross way (esp. in the cases with British shows). This at least was making a point slightly beyond that - that even if you had an "excuse" - i.e. "I'm cosplaying!", it's not really okay. It also introduced the most unfortunate thing about Drow to a broader audience, which honestly is probably a good thing.
A person in a drow costume is not imitating a black person like with blackface, they're cosplaying or larping a fantasy race with a skintone (total black) which doesn't exist in nature, it's the same thing that cosplaying fantasy or alien races with green, purple or blue skintones.
Yeah, but the entire point of the episode, the entire joke, the entire reason it's in there is that it looks inappropriate-as-hell, and unless you're familiar with the material,
appears to be crude and bizarre blackface.
Also note that a lot of RL blackface used unnatural skintones, so the "Oh it's not natural!" isn't really a compelling argument here, at all. It looks like blackface, and it's going to be pretty shocking/offensive to people. Again that's literally the joke in the show - the character has no taste, no decorum, no manners, and generally a reprobate, so thinks it's fine.
That it is the joke makes maintaining a position that it's "fine" in this situation pretty impossible. It's obviously
not okay to run around looking like a black-and-white minstrel who forgot his super-extra-racist lipstick just because you're "cosplaying". That's the point even the show was making.