The last 2 or 3 minutes of the episode were awesome, the fight was great and Byakuya got owned. The rest was just chopped up bullshit whit shit sauce. Was it really necessary to cut away from every scene like 20 times. They are trying to juggle alot of things at once and they are doing a poor job. It really ruined the mood and the tension, but I guess they have to fill out the episodes somehow or else the Ichigo fight would only be one episode.

Stupid things in this episode:

Byakuya just watched when Ichigo loaded his bankai for an hour or so and all the time he was thinking "is it really a bankai... no thats impossible... but I could be wrong... no I'm never wrong... but that one time... no I was just young... and inexperienced... and drunk... he said he loved me... he said he would come back (sob sob sob)". This is the guy that has attacked Ichigo from behind several times, so this situation was just silly.

Ichigo had a clean shot at slicing Byakuyas throat and this is what happened.
-Byakuya: You didn't cut my throat... is that ok?
-Ichigo: As a matter of fact... it isn't. (Or something like that, I don't really remember.)

The filler thing is probably right. They will cut away from the Ichigo fight now and show some random stuff and alot of flashbacks.

Ichigo's new sword was kind of neat, I don't get the logic though. First the sword is small (pre shikai which we don't get to see but I'm assuming if it wasn't in auto shikai it would be normal sized). Then it gets big and then it becomes small again. It would have made more sence if it got smaller all the time and the bankai would be so thin that it would be near invisible. And also the bankai and the shikai have no connection. If you look at Byakuya his shikai is one "petal cloud" and his bankai is a thousand "petal clouds". Ichigo on the other hand, his shikai a big ass sword that shoots laser beams and his bankai a normal sized katana that makes him faster.