So yeah after this episode we learn that obviously Sabo isn't dead, because Dragon brought him to his crew, which is exactly what I thought was going to go down.
The flashback/filler stuff didn't bug me at all. I enjoyed all but probably one of the episodes, and when compared to other animes that try to do padding, it was light years ahead in being great to watch. I mean every single episode of Naruto Shippuden as of late has been nothing but 8 minutes of new content, and 22 minutes of flash back to the same shit you have seen 20394820 times already, and it'll even do the same flash back sequences in the same fucking episode. My brain wants to implode watching that show sometimes.
Excited as hell now for where the series for OP goes, because Luff is as big as you can get after everything that's happened, and when the crew does get back together, I wonder if they can get into their old shenanigans as easily anymore.