Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if that Hyuuga tells Sakura what happened and she's the one who rushes to Hinata's rescue. I don't think this is the end of Hinata... but a good way to leave the watcher craving the next scene.

Also, I saw some comments about how it seemed like Pain was waiting for this moment, well the answer to that may be pretty obvious. We all remember when Sasuke was able to enter Naruto's inner world via the Sharingan and face the Kyuubi, so it is fairly safe to assume that Pain can do the same with his Rinnegan, probably with even more abilities as well.

Something nobody has asked is what exactly did Hinata do at the end there with the chakra stick? She very obviously grabbed it and took some of the pulse, maybe she did something to sabotage it, hamper it, or otherwise transmit her own chakra into it...

The ending cliffhanger made me want to strangle the studio for not making this a 1hr episode... you can't leave it like that, dammit!