Yeah, I'm generally not any fan of flashback but they worked here, mixed in with those villagers' comments. All in all a jolly good episode and succesfully created the kind of atmosphere it was aiming at. An arc filled with that much pain needed an ending like this.

I liked Pain's change of heart because in reality it was no change but a reversal back to what he really had wanted to believe in all the time. Based on the flashback he was far from any villain by his basic nature, so in a sense he was looking forward to going back, given a chance.

I wonder if they'll allow Naruto to skip the next chuunin exam based on his performance here, har har.