Good episode. The pacing in this episode was far better than the others so far. Though it did annoy me that the "Decoder" took what seemed like hours to figure out that Gaara got kidnapped. Even then, she seemed to walk to Tsunade's office.

The other episodes clearly had a "movie pace". The music had a lot to do with my perception. Lots of build up, but everything seemed like it was just a prelude to something awesome. This was a huge improvement. The episode was exciting for what was going on in the episode instead of what the show promised later.

On a similar note, the Kankurou/Sasori fight was fun to watch in the same way fights from the first series were. Instead of people doing stuff silently, they narrated what the characters were thinking strategically.

More on the music. I hope they play some goddamned rock and roll during the fights like they used to.