Not only are both of these episodes obvoius fillers, they have all of the worst characteristics of fillers: they have nothinig to do with the overall story line, they make no sense and they are a pain to watch, except for the occasional funny moment or two. All in all, about five minutes into each one, I was thinking "when is this going to stop sucking?" and unfortunately, the moment where the sucking ceased and desisted never came for either episode 22 or 23.
Here's hoping that future episodes will get back to what made the series great in the first place: a sensible plotline, cool fighting, and humor that at least makes some sense.
On the other hand, cowboy bepop had a few of these kind of episodes as well, so I guess its to be expected.