Board Thread:Episode Discussions/@comment-25319479-20150514144219/@comment-4912646-20150515003124

I seem to recall the Ame genin's memories of transporting Ajisai's corpse being a recent event as of the Pain arc, so it's unlikely we'll be told how she dies in this filler. It would also be strange for them to perfectly preserve her body for years just so she could serve as a replacement Pain, although this filler was implying that her and Nagato somehow share some of the same summoning animals.

Anyway, while this episode was alright, it's still really disappointing that the filler arc is ending on such a low note. I had been hoping the one-on-one fights in the third stage of the exams would make up for some of the terrible episodes in the second, but now there won't even be a third stage at all. It feels rushed, and a lot of the new characters got to do so little it makes you wonder why they were even introduced. We never even learned about Yome's weird dōjutsu(?) or saw any of those sand ninja again, for example.