This episode was great! Like most of the people I don't like the OP and the ED songs but thats ok with me as long as they're going to show us more of this awesome animation .

Maybe Hitsuguya was hit by his own bankai respectively the disappearing of the same. The arrancar in the last ep compared Hitsugaya's ice-flowers to a timer so perhaps his bankai explodes like a bomb if he let its flowers go down to zero.