This was my favourite episode of Season 3 so far. It had very compelling fights ’cause the fights themselves made you care about the characters either directly or indirectly due to the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony’s powers, more compelling villains since Regulus was just a noob with an OP power who was just evil in contrast to Lye and Roy, interesting foreshadowing, and character writing that is consistent with what came before.
The first two scenes need to being looked at as a whole given how one interaction doesn’t make sense if you don’t do that, so I’ll be covering both the ongoing fight with Lye and the start of the fight with Roy, looking at them together as if they are a whole. The episode starts with a lot of the White Dragon’s Scales mercenaries making light of Lye since they think he’s just one brat, but he moves really quickly, leading to Gaston trying to take him on directly with him being taking a big blow from an attack Lye called the “Fist Lord’s Strike”, which seemed to pack a lot more punch than what Lye had attacked Gaston with a number of episodes back. Otto then used Earth Magic, which he had revealed he had in Season 2, to get Lye away from Gaston since he realized all of them would be in huge trouble if Gaston were to be killed. Otto then noted that he’s surprised by Lye’s lack of finishing blows considering he probably had the opportunity to kill Gaston then and there instead of merely hitting him with one blow. Lye then taunts them, saying that they’re useless for not being able to handle one brat and that he’s nothing compared to the indiscriminate Roy, and in this sense I believe he is referring both to how Roy is not a gourmand like he is and how Roy is unrestrained in dealing with his prey.
And now to the Roy fight, as I mentioned in an earlier episode, Julius reacted to Roy referring to him to Nii-sama, and it’s ’cause deep down he retains the feeling he had a younger brother even though Roy has erased Joshua by eating both his memories and his name, the latter of which causes all proof of your existence to be erased, and when both are eaten, you become like Rem, who is a shell of herself in suspended animation. That’s how Roy could dodge Julius’s Al Clauseria and then counter his 2-spirit combination attack after he demonstrated to Ricardo how much better as a swordsman he was. Then he dropped his swords and said, “Eclipse”, and struck Julius with his fist, which dealt a lot of damage to Julius. When Roy started using Water Magic, Ricardo was baffled that he had mastered sword arts, martial arts, and magic, and Roy had described himself as a humble, nameless mage after Ricardo asked him just what the hell he was, showing that he had gained access to the skills of a mage that he had erased, and perhaps the reason he said Eclipse after he dropped his swords the first time was to show he was switching to someone else’s memories to harvest his/her skills and knowledge, which allowed him to be skilled at martial arts. I believe Lye and Roy can only tap into one person’s memories and skills at a time basing this mainly on how Roy dropped his swords before he said, “Eclipse”, and switched to martial arts against Julius and how he called himself a humble, nameless mage when he used water magic against Ricardo and Julius. If they could tap into more than one person’s skills and memories at a time, Roy wouldn’t be speaking as if he was just a mage or dropping his swords when he intended to change his fighting style if he could just put them away, which shows he tapped into someone’s memories who isn’t used to moving around with swords on his/her person. Ricardo then dispelled the water dragon attack with a roar, leading to Roy being giddy about how it’s a long time anyone survived that attack, which shows that he is indiscriminate as Lye had indicated with him being unrestrained in handling his prey by going all-out from the beginning whereas Lye has seemed to be going easy on them by not dealing any of Otto’s group a finishing blow even though we’ve gotten much more of that fight and only the beginning of this Roy fight. Julius then remarks about why Roy has chosen evil despite his skills, and Roy taunts him with Joshua’s memories, calling him the brother he always idolized due to him picking an appa from a tree for him when he was sick, but Julius has no recollection of that even though clearly feels something deep down given his reaction to Roy’s words. Roy then says with Joshua’s memories that he always felt that he was a burden, but now with Joshua’s memories in tow, he implies it’s great now to be in control, saying he actually resented Julius for picking that appa for him since it’s something he couldn’t do himself at that age. It was then implied that Julius took a blow after rushing towards Lye, and that became a good time to segue into the Capella and Al fight.
Then it segues to Al having split Capella in half from the top of her head to her belly with Capella musing about how many more times will it actually take before he can actually kill her. Al then replies even if he dies a hundred times, he’s not sure that he could ever kill her but that maybe she is the one who hasn’t thought this through since he knew she’d come here which means they were prepared to give her an especially warm welcome with an attack that would shatter her very soul, and Capella just tells him to do it if they went through all that effort to do so. She says that if they did all that for her that her principles won’t let her turn down the thoughtfulness in what they had prepared for her. Al then has a cute interaction with Capella when he says that she’s seriously going to die and that dying hurts and is scary, especially the first time, saying she doesn’t want to do that, showing that Al does indeed have a power that lets him defy death, which was hinted at in Episode 60 when he said that she better get out of there before he dies. Al, for the lulz, even threw in a dirty joke for her about how she should save her firsts for when the time is right, which she really appreciated although she remarked that he’s probably doing that to lie to her, leading her to transform into her black dragon form, asking him which form he likes the most with Al replying that he can never love anyone. Al then steps on a part of the ground that caused the whole place to start collapsing, and he dives into the water.
When Al got out of the water, he nearly took off his helmet, but seeing Anastasia was there, he decided not do it, saying he’s self-conscious. Anastasia says she didn’t expect Capella to take the whole place down, and Al says he was secretly crushed three times, which suggests that Capella killed him three times. Then Felix also joined them, and when Anastasia asked whether it was pointless to hope that Capella had died, Felix remarked that even Anastasia blowing off Capella’s face with magic wasn’t enough and that she thought Anastasia couldn’t, leading to Al drawing his sword against Anastasia since he knows magic is something Anastasia’s not capable of using. I’m not sure who this could be in Anastasia’s body though, whether it’s a shape-shifter or a possession of sorts. Al only backed down ’cause Felix pressed Al’s sword against his skin, causing it to bleed.
The information suggests again that Al may have been the previous hero of the story given he knew the remains of the witch in Priestella is that of Typhon’s and that you shouldn’t give out your real name to the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony. As for why Al is very likely not a future Subaru, Al neither knew about the extent of Capella’s regeneration nor her power to transform into your ideal partner by reading all your reactions to her, showing he had limited to no exposure to her, meaning she may not have been the Sin Archbishop of the Lust during his run-through as the hero of the story. Another point against Al being a future Subaru is that Al can specifically mention that he has been dying to Capella with it implied that she knows that is the case, which Subaru is not permitted to do by Satella when he has the intent to share information about Return By Death. This suggests that Al simply has a different power than Subaru and that it’s not a matter of Al being able to control his power better. Granted, this is not definitive proof that he can’t be Subaru since we don’t know all the rules of Re:Zero’s world. We don’t know whether an Authority can change over time, and if it can, perhaps Al’s Authority used to be identical to Subaru’s before it became whatever it is now.
Capella then returns as she reforms from rats with her missing her eyes leading to her getting the last two rats to conglomerate into her full form. This may indicate that Capella has a minimum mass given when she was missing a couple of pieces of her body she couldn’t fully reform herself. Capella is acting very dere with how Al hit her with such a passionate attack even though it didn’t end doing any permanent damage to her. When Al draws his sword against her, she tells him not to misunderstand since she’s leaving due to her already having done what she wanted to do, and as Anastasia interjects, it’s what the Gospel ordered her to do, which Capella didn’t respond well to, saying that her feelings for them aren’t from some book and that they’re real, describing it as pure love, which triggers Felix, leading to him saying that if they kill her, she bets Crusch’s body will be returned to normal, something Capella shoots down immediately since her and her blood are two separate entities. She then sends out her Demi-Beasts that are alive yet dead since they’re so intent on chasing after her, which Felix makes Felix cry out in tears about how she could do such a thing with Capella remarking in an attempt to provoke Felix that it might be ’cause no one ever told her to not play with corpses. This does get under Felix’s skin since as a healer he probably values life and respects those who have died as opposed to Capella turning corpses into monstrosities and not allowing people to move on. Al then directs them to flee, and Capella tells them if they don’t keep up the fight that more people will die, creating more Demi-beasts in the process, urging them to slaughter them all before she splits her bodies in rats and starts fleeing from the city.
As I have stated before in my previous write-ups, I do not believe that Witch Cult Gospels are true texts that tell the future but are merely meant to keep the world on a particular path given how Regulus’s Gospel made him believe he would meet the Emilia camp again in the first loop of this arc despite it not happening again until the fourth loop. Capella escaping could be the way for the source of the knowledge of the Gospels to ensure that none of Al, Capella, or whoever this Anastasia is, die since if she had pursued them, one or more of them may have died, showing that it’s also keeping the world on a particular path. While they’re fleeing, Felix eventually cries out to somebody to help, leading to Reinhard using his super hearing to hone in on their location, and at Felix’s urging of him to kill all the Demi-beasts, he does. I believe Felix is crying for them to be given death since they currently can’t move on after dying due to what they have become. I believe Reinhard’s eyes were obscured for this week’s episode ’cause he is suffering while fulfilling his duty as the Sword Saint. ‘Cause Reinhard was adamant that the corpse soldier Theresia was just a corpse soldier, meaning he was justified in killing her, Wilhelm said that he had nothing left to say to him and urged “Sword Saint Reinhard-dono” to do his duty in using his immense strength on the battlefield, reducing him to merely being a weapon. Earlier this season, Wilhelm wanted to close the gap between him and Reinhard, but him saying in the previous episode “You’re right. I’m wrong. So I have nothing more to say to you”, followed by referring to Reinhard in an extremely impersonal and respectful way (full title with the -dono honorific) is a pretty clear indication that the gap is not closing anymore as you really don’t hit someone with a “I have nothing more to say to you, so respectfully go away” if you have any intention to be friendly with them afterwards. Reinhard just wants to be treated as a person as anybody else would, and that’s why he reacted so well to Subaru saying he’d make up for any of Reinhard’s shortcomings in Episode 58.
Back to Otto’s group and Lye, Gaston remarks that Lye is pretty damn good at fighting, and he knows this ’cause he was trained by the gardener at Reinhard’s place and can see that Lye’s movements aren’t that of someone who is innately talented but has trained for years. Upon hearing that, Otto realizes that Lye and Roy can gain the knowledge and skills of anyone they eat, and Otto plays dumb. Lye says that unspoken messages, which I’m guessing should actually be “hiding your body language” and was a mistranslation, isn’t a strong point of Otto’s, so maybe she should give up on being a merchant before he gets hurt. Lye then immediately eats one of the mercenaries, Hicks, and nobody remembers him, not even Dynas, the leader of the White Dragon’s Scales. Lye says it’s because this type of thing is so sad that they love to engage in this sort of one-sided reunion in which they taunt the people who have lost someone dear to them much like Roy had also been doing, and when Dynas says that he hasn’t seen the guy who had been eaten before despite clearly on some level knowing there’s something off, Lye taunts him with his memories, suggesting it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t protect Miriam (and Maylie? The subs said Mary, but there was someone with a similar name from Season 2).
Enraged, Dynas rushes towards Lye and gets knocked back easily with Lye musing that strong emotions are great ’cause they’re so rich, and that’s likely why he takes his time buttering up his prey as opposed to Roy who immediately escalates the situation with his prey, which is why Otto remarks that as a normal person he can’t think of people in terms of how delicious they are, prompting him to ask everyone to not say his name, only for it to be revealed that none of them knew it to begin with. Otto put it out there that he believes that what Lye is doing in letting them fight back is his idea of setting a table for a meal, and Lye remarks that people with keen instincts are hard to finish off and that they get away with it ’cause it makes them all the more tasty. Otto declares that he has won with Lye indicating that Dynas and Gaston are not bad but not worthy of a main course but that after losing Felt it would be bad to also let Otto get away too, especially Rui would rip him a new one, and this is not the first time Lye has mentioned Rui. Given Rui would rip him a new one if he were to let Otto go, it perhaps suggests that Rui is also a Sin Archbishop although who knows where she is given she is nowhere to be seen. Otto then tells everyone if he touches them that they’re as good as dead since he can eat anything he touches. They all rush towards Lye after Otto thanks him for his impeccable manners, and after Gaston creates an opening, Otto grabs Lye and puts two fire magic stones underneath his shirt, which explode on him, revealing many scars. Otto wonders whether those scars made him the way he is, which leads to Lye pestering him about giving out his name to him and also saying he has other ways to get him to talk, such as eating Otto’s fingers one by one. Beatrice then makes a grand entrance saying it’s rude to start eating before everyone is at the table. I’m not sure how she’s awake after she was in a severely mana-depressed state, but absent a proper explanation, maybe she restored enough mana to function after one day of sleep. Otherwise, someone restored her mana through some other means. Otto was about to say Beatrice’s name, but Lye tapped into Rem’s memories and already knew it, and his impersonation of Rem is just so disgusting on every level. He clamours to meet Subaru since Rem had talked about how Subaru would pass judgement on him in Episode 26, which is why he was so eager to meet Subaru in Episode 59. Beatrice is determined to not let Lye meet Subaru given that he’d be extremely hurt, possibly irreparably, which is why she and Otto have to take care of him here and now. Beatrice and Otto don’t really remember Rem themselves, but they have been told about Rem by Subaru and knows how much she means to them.
I just find Lye and Roy to be much more compelling villains than Regulus was, who was just an evil man-child with a broken power. Lye and Roy taunting people with the memories of people they used to know is more effective at making me care their fights both the characters fighting the Witch Cult and the Sin Archbishops themselves. Capella also steals the scene of basically every scene she’s in. The touch with Reinhard being disheartened over how his relationship with Wilhelm has relationship has deteriorated further and the bit with Anastasia being a possible fake was also great to watch, and I believe this episode was Re:Zero at its best.