This installment started with a recap of last week's episode and then it shed more light on the recent revelation that Isshin Kurosaki, Ichigo's father, is a Soul Reaper too. He puts an end to the Grand Fisher, the hollow that killed his wife so many years ago, but the vengeance brings him little joy. The scene was a bit too casual for my tastes, and it could have used better direction to amp up the drama. Even though Isshin didn't get much out of destroying the Grand Fisher, the personal connection really could've been drawn out a bit to give us a better understanding of his character (and I fully understand the irony of wishing something in Bleach was more drawn out).
Shortly after the Grand Fisher is axed, we get an intro of the Visoreds (or vizards, if you prefer, though it isn't the official English translation in the dub). There's lots of expository dialogue to explain things, but what it boils down to is Sosuke Aizen trying to take over the world with a team of Arrancars, who are these extremely powerful hollows. It was a bit of an info dump, but it was relatively short at least, and the concept of the arrancars and their plan is fairly interesting.
There were plenty more flashbacks from the previous episodes (gotta cut corners on that animation budget), including scenes involving the recently-introduced Shinji Hirako and the father-son dispute between Uryu and Ryuken Ishida. While the flashbacks are probably useful for people just jumping back into the show, it kinda feels cheap when a good portion of the episode is old footage. Other questionable aspects of the episode include the comic scenes in the classroom with Ichigo's classmates, which were a bit over the top with the wild takes, even by Bleach standards.
But the introduction of a new character, Hiyori Sarugaki, was worth a few laughs, and so was the appearance of a one-finger variation of the kancho (a.k.a finger-in-the-butt). The Visoreds seem like they'll be a nice addition to the ever-expanding ranks of the Bleach cast. They're funny, a bit mysterious, and all signs point to them being able to kick major butt, once the battles start.
The episode ends with a decent cliffhanger, with Uryu going to his father and swearing to abandon the Soul Reapers in exchange for his Quincy powers back. That little side-story between those two is already providing material for some really melodramatic moments. It should be quite an interesting sub-plot once it develops a bit more. And that's really the overall impression of this episode: it's mostly laying groundwork for storylines that seem to have potential but will take some time to grow and blossom. This wasn't nearly the best episode of Bleach, but it did provide a starting point for an arc that could gives us some of the best Bleach moments yet.
