@Medical:
Out of curiosity, what do the number of stars mean next to the director names in the episode threads? I've been wondering that for years.
My personal opinion on how good/bad they are. As long as they have at least three stars you should expect a competently put-together episode. Two or two-and-a-half are spotty, and fortunately we haven't had any regulars weaker than that. One-star would have to be like…someone whose episodes are consistantly melting like the notorious 307 or that one really, really bad episode of Dressrosa that completely butchered what was supposed to be Usopp's big moment of the arc. You don't have to agree with my opinion since it's all subjective of course, but I feel like I'm pretty fair. Maybe even a bit too conservative sometimes.
--- Update From New Post Merge ---
Ultimately this was a pretty solid conclusion to the flashback outside of the montage maybe going on a bit too long (what else is new, right?). Keeping the spy's dialogue silent and portraying that scene like a silent film was a clever way to handle it since their only other option for keeping his identity a secret would've been to artifically alter the sound of his voice. Another solid effort by the Inoue/HIto duo.
Hopefully the staff learned their lesson from Super Powers and the "hidden" character won't look worse after being unveiled the way that Sulong Carrot and Snakeman did. I have confidence in Ishizuka.