The episode starts with Ram waking up Subaru at an underground location and Subaru remarking why it’s just him and Ram around, and Ram turns back the question onto him since she’s very worried about Rem given Subaru had told her the reason he was bringing Rem with them is so that he wants to save her with his entire being and that he wants to be the one she sees first when she wakes. Judging from Subaru’s memory, the group was falling, and he was closest to Beatrice, but he still deliberately reached for Ram, and there’s a clear reason for this in that Subaru reached for the person he had the best access to who most needed it given that Rem was in a carriage, making her inaccessible even though he’s the one he wants to save most. Also of note that is that Ram drained a lot of her mana using her Clairvoyance repeatedly and was even bleeding from her eyes when she tapped into the their attacker’s field of vision, so Subaru, who is considerate of the situation of his friends, chose to grab hold of the one who’d need help the most since Ram cannot naturally replenish her mana since she lost her horn and can only fight for a short time, making her the next most vulnerable aside from Rem.
Subaru then gets frantic thinking how horrible the situation is for Rem since she’s effectively a vegetable right now, and after he asks whether Ram even cares about Rem being in danger ’cause Ram told him to calm down, Ram forces him to come back to his senses after grabbing onto what he’s wearing and letting him get a good look at her eyes, which showed the distress she was feeling. Ram then let him know that ’cause of her link with Rem she knows Rem’s still alive regardless of what her actual situation is like. Crunchyroll’s AI translator again spits out gibberish with the talk of the “synesthesia” that Rem and Ram have when “twin link” or “twin telepathy” would be by orders of magnitude much more more accurate. Foxidna and Patrasche then return to the area, and Ram remarks that she never confirmed with Subaru that it was just the two of them when he looked toward her, seemingly putting it out that that he deceived her. They are nowhere near an exit, and none of the others are around, but they must move forward.
After they’ve walked for a while, Ram asks Subaru whether he can call lesser spirits, and he says that his link with Beatrice is so strong it scares lesser spirits, which seems very strange given Emilia had such a strong contract with Puck and could still call lesser spirits, so this begs the question of why this difference between Emilia and Subaru exists. Maybe Echidna made Beatrice in such a manner such that Beatrice’s very essence/being deters lesser spirits from engaging with Subaru. As for a reason why Echidna would craft Beatrice to be like this, I’ve stated before in the past that in my main theory the prototypical ancient hero who lost to the final boss of that era may have fit the mold of a selfish, conceited, and overpowered hero that is typical of many fantasy stories, particular those of the isekai genre, and if that final boss activated his/her Authority or cursed the world to be biased toward repeating that general story path that hero tread upon, then a myriad of iterations of the world came by with the Hero of the story for each individual iteration fitting that mold of the conceited overpowered hero since they failed to overcome their character flaws, leading to each of those heroes choosing his lover over the world, dooming it to destruction.
Thus, Subaru being pushed onto a path in which he has a gate that doesn’t listen to his directive (the mana from his body rushed out uncontrollably in Season 1) and in which his gate had to be destroyed irreparably unless Minerva heals it so that he could win over Garfiel in Season 2, thereby forcing him to solely rely on Beatrice, hindering both his combat and support abilities, may be completely intentional to keep Subaru honest and humble, making his being unable to call lesser spirits when contracted with Beatrice a feature rather than a bug. As I’ve stated in my main theory, I believe Subaru used to be a part of his father, Kenichi, sharing the same body as him, and given how badass Kenichi was when viewers saw him in Episode 29, he could’ve fit the mold of a conceited but overpowered hero, and he split Subaru from himself to fashion a future Hero of Re:Zero’s story who wouldn’t fit the exact mold the previous Heroes of the story did since this would force Subaru to rely on his friends and be a team player instead of being the guy who is able to resolve most of the situations with minimal help.
Of course Ram then makes a jab at Subaru’s usefulness, which he is angry about given he still has insecurities about his self-worth, and he even audibly said, “Grr…” if it wasn’t clear how that made him feel, and Foxidna let him know that before he woke up, Ram was actually completely distraught about Rem and that the dynamic they have together keeps her emotionally stable, which reassures Subaru. It’s at this point that the path they were on splits into two separate tunnels. And based on Subaru’s “knowledge” about behavioural studies showing that people tend to choose left in these types of situations, citing Freud, who never said such a thing, I believe he was joking, but there’s potentially also more to it than that, which I will eventually get into in that I believe this is crucial foreshadowing.
As the group keeps walking, they come across what appears to be a completely sealed off stone slab obstructing any potential progress, but oddly enough, Subaru thinks it’s a door, and when he places his hand on it, it sparks a reaction, including a coloured, hand-shape mark growing outward from his hand, which leads to the slab dematerializing, indicating it was a construct of magic but not just any magic since only he could see it and only he could dematerialize it, which is very particular. Patrasche didn’t want to continue on though since she could smell the miasma, but she relented. They have no idea why what they witnessed just happened, but eventually they come across a second stone slab which meets the same fate as the first, and the whole group seems exhausted for some reason. Subaru is then at a fourth door with the third door vanishing offscreen with him not being able to get past this fourth one, leading to the group getting more and more irritated before they start killing each other with Foxidna and Anastasia being killed by Ram’s wind magic, and Ram being decapitated by Patrasche with Subaru suffering that very same fate shortly afterward after Patrasche appeared to laugh like an evil maniac. Ram’s wind magic actually destroyed the fox muffler that is Foxidna’s real body, and that would be when Anastasia regained control of her body and clung to Subaru with pure terror in her eyes, desperately crying out that she doesn’t want to die. The night filter which depicted the insanity was very effective and gave the chaos depicted a powerful cinematic feel, amplifying how the situation kept on escalating. Subaru then loops back and asks about what miasma really is, and it’s tainted mana that drives people insane if exposed to too much of it, which is why the best way to handle it is to avoid being where the miasma is thickest.
Now back to the content on Freud, I believe Subaru was fully aware about a lot of his work being discredited, and that’s why he specifically cited the many behavioural studies with his saying that his sense of justice is telling him to choose the path on the right being Subaru being silly and also probably going with a hunch based on the bulk of Freud’s work, but it’s nearly certain there’s powerful foreshadowing in a hidden message in citing Freud’s work, which suggested that acting on impulses or unintended thoughts is a way to access the unconscious mind with Freud believing the truest yet often most inconvenient information comes from the unexpected, suppressed parts of our psyche. Where I’m going with this is that the doors Subaru made vanish could only be perceived by him with everyone else seeing them as insurmountable obstacles, not to mention them responding to the touch of his hand. The miasma also grew stronger as they kept going further through the path, and that suggests there’s a very potent source of miasma at the end of it. Given that Episode 67 revealed that Satella’s sealed at the Auguria Dunes and that Witches of Sin are known to emit a great deal of miasma, it’s highly like that Satella’s sealed body is the source of the miasma. Why this is important is that Satella told Subaru to kill her someday in Episode 38, so given that’s the case, Subaru may be subconsciously trying to go to where Satella is to fulfill his end of the bargain in what may have been a lover’s promise in which Satella made Subaru promise to kill her one day, most likely to save the world, so this Freud content could very well be masterclass foreshadowing.
As for why I believe Subaru and Satella were lovers, Episodes 18, 25, and 38 all point to that likely being the case with Puck indicating in Ep. 18 that if Petelgeuse wants to kill him he’ll need to summon a thousand shadows, half of what Satella could, Subaru saying to Emilia in Ep. 25 that if she lists ten things she hates about herself, he’ll list two thousand things he loves about her (1,000×2=2,000), and Subaru swearing that he’ll save Satella in Ep. 38 after she requested that he kill her, showing a sudden upwelling of positive sentiment for Satella even though he had called her a monster he couldn’t understand not long before that, all of which show that Subaru has dormant memories of Satella that cannot be explained by time travel or reincarnation since they both existed in the same time period. More fodder for them previously being lovers is that in Episode 29, the construct of Subaru’s past showed that he has a penchant for silver-haired heroines, which indicates that he may’ve been lovers with a silver-haired woman in the past. This is the main reason I believe Subaru chose the path to the right since he subconsciously remembered his prime objective that he may have burdened himself with due to being Satella’s lover.
Thus, perhaps the doors even requiring Subaru’s touch in the first place to dissipate could be that they were made specifically for him and even possibly by him given it’s his hand they react to, and nobody else can perceive them as doors. I believe Subaru being able to open three doors that only he could perceive shows that the Pleiades Watchtower was built specifically for him, which would make sense given Subaru’s the Japanese term for Pleiades, and it’s three doors for three Witch Factors (Either Envy or Pride, Sloth, and Greed from having killed Regulus).
However, even if Subaru had all the Witch Factors, he wouldn’t be able to make it to the end of the path ’cause he’d go insane before that. I believe he’d need either Reinhard to help them traverse the tunnel at full throttle and/or at least a powerful Yang magic user to buff his and Patrasche’s body so that they can go much faster than they are able to on their own. That there are doors only Subaru can perceive likely indicates that he is tasked with returning Satella to this world from the group of heroes from four hundred years ago, including Satella, Echidna, and probably Flugel/Kenichi since the doors are likely meant to ensure that nobody makes it there until Subaru is ready.
This would’ve been fully planned given Satella asked Subaru to love himself before someday killing her, showing the intent’s to raise Subaru as the world’s saviour, showing I may’ve been on the money when I predicted after Ep. 24 that Satella’s plan’s to possess Emilia at the end of the story much as Petelgeuse mused was the point of the Ordeals, to test Emilia for compatibility as Satella’s vessel, with this being the intervention against the cycle I believe the world’s stuck on as alluded to by Melakuera’s words about a Witch being a world imbalance and how he’d faced world-ending crises countless times, likely showing the world’s repeatedly destroyed by the Witch of Envy before being reconstructed.
As for a reason why I’ve thought that since Season 1, I can tell you that Subaru’s defining character trait in Season 1 was that he has very low self-esteem, and the thought I had is that if Satella really does “favour” Subaru as Beatrice said, which is likely given Satella indicated that Petelgeuse isn’t the one, and she’s supposedly unkillable in her regular body, then a good way for Satella to show her love for Subaru would be to have him be the one who kills her, making him the greatest hero the world has ever seen, and possess Emilia’s body in the process, which probably is easier to be killed in, which would be an excellent way for her to finally die. I like using macro-level “big picture” thinking. This is what I thought of after Petelgeuse revealed what the Ordeal was for in 2016.
And now back to the events of the episode, I loved Ram helping Subaru vomit due to his feeling nauseous about his previous loop’s events, and then after he was finally okay, Ram even fit in a joke about him being perverted with her saying that she’s glad he’s happy now, as if Subaru getting her fingers going down his throat is an exquisite experience any man would appreciate, a good taste of the sort of roasts Ram often gives Subaru, which is a cute dynamic they have. They then choose the path on the left this time, and Subaru’s extremely considerate this time, cognizant of how the miasma can make things spiral, which of course creeps the girls out since it’s unnatural compared to that behaviour being Julius’s natural inclinations.
They then notice a burning smell, and Subaru volunteers to check it out, leading to him falling to a different area with a faceless centaur mabeast that is killing Oiran Bears with fireballs. There’s excellent action showing just how outclassed the group is. While Ram may have said that they’d use Subaru as bait and such, she clearly cares for him so much in willing to sacrifice herself for him, implying that Rem would be hurt seeing him die, and it just shows that Ram sees Subaru like a brother-in-law already even though he and Rem aren’t actually together. It looks bleak before the great Shaula the Sage saves them by eradicating that mabeast with needles. I say this is Shaula since the title of the episode is “The Keeper of the Watchtower”.
Shaula’s outfit colours also highly suggest that her purpose involves Subaru in some way given they match his tracksuit’s colours. This would also explain why she has said, “I’ve found you.” once again this episode if there’s something more to their relationship. It would also explain why she has always had Subaru in sights in Episode 68 and only aimed at Subaru ’cause she was testing for someone worthy of the Pleiades Watchtower since it seems disrupting the magic of the distortion was necessary for making it to the next part/phase of conquering the tower, which is shown by how she was very much pleased to save Subaru and Ram.
It was a fantastic episode that had all of that which makes Re:Zero shine, good lore drops, powerful potential foreshadowing, great character interactions, truly unsettling moments, and even some sweet battle animation for good measure. I thought this episode was clearly better than any episode of Season 3 aside from Episode 65, which I consider the best episode of Season 3.
Now that I’ve talked about the entire episode, I’m now highlighting Re:Zero Break Time Season 4 Episode 3. Foxidna refers to herself and Beatrice as kindred souls, and this probably indicates not just that they’re artificial spirits but that they’re also creations of Echidna, potentially backing up my theory from Episode 67, showing that Foxidna lied about not remembering anything about herself since she knows that she and Beatrice have similar origins, and this may back up my previous speculation that Foxidna deliberately put it in Subaru’s head to take Rem with him to Pleiades Watchtower for an unknown (plot?) reason and that she remembers Julius. Here’s the link to the short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsCoAW9_Kxc