Re:Zero is back after 2 and a half months, and it had some very interesting details that will probably be relevant to the plot in the future, and details like those are why I love series such as Re:Zero and Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) since I adore series with very strong long-term planning and foreshadowing. The first two important details are that Priscilla doesn’t completely trust Al since he keeps a lot of secrets from her when Liliana put it out there that she must trust Al a lot since she was leaving him to defend their stronghold at the government office and that Anastasia was keeping secrets of her own from Julius, which has been leading to him increasingly feeling an unseemly guilt from Priscilla’s perspective, and of course, Anastasia retorts that Priscilla shouldn’t make it sound so nasty, showing either a lack of empathy for Julius from Anastasia or a playful jab from Priscilla to get the attention off of herself due to her trust or lack thereof in Al being highlighted. While it may make sense to think that Priscilla was talking about something regarding Anastasia’s arrangement with Kiritaka, I’m more inclined to believe it is referring to something else, which may be brought up again either during Arc 6’s adaption, which is rumoured to be 22-episodes-long after this 16-episode adaptation of the Priestella arc, or a fourth or fifth season. As I’m not a source reader, I don’t know when Tappei intends to flesh out this reveal.
After that, we see the introduction of several of the groups and who they run into, and aside from Wilhelm confiding in Garfiel about his deceased wife, which was probably meant to inspire Garf and motivate him to fight at his best, the two most relevant pieces of info are that Theresia’s soul is being warped and that Priscilla knew that someone got ahead of the Witch Cult’s plan to learn the details of Typhon’s corpse by slaying the other nine members of the Council of Ten aside from Kiritaka. Why the point about Theresia’s soul being warped is important is after Wilhelm slashed off the hood of Theresia’s outfit, the face we saw was that of a young Theresia despite her having died when she was middle-aged when Reinhard was young. In some other fantasy series, modifying or changing someone’s soul can result in that person’s physical appearance changing, which mostly confirms Wilhelm’s belief that her soul is being warped. Back to Priscilla, the Witch Cult’s plan was most likely to kill some of its members to get the remaining members to talk, which the cult can no longer do after the slayings. Priscilla spoke as if that person wasn’t herself, so it was likely either Al or a close associate of hers after the process of elimination. The only named Priscilla associates viewers know of in this arc are Al, Heinkel, and Schult. We know it couldn’t have been Heinkel given the sort of shit he was doing around that time that happened, and little Schult definitely didn’t do it, so that leaves Al unless it was someone yet to be revealed.
A big point from a previous episode is that Al left right as Subaru and his group were getting prepared to fight the Witch Cult in Episode 54, and he said he was looking for Priscilla, but Priscilla confirmed in Episode 58 that he did no such thing, which makes that time period the perfect opportunity for him to kill nine members of the Council of Ten.
More of the presentation this episode indicated that was the case with how Priscilla indicated earlier to Liliana and Anastasia that it’s not a matter of whether she trusts Al as there’s a lot he doesn’t tell her. Perhaps Al didn’t tell her why exactly he needed to kill the other members aside from Kiritaka instead of simply relocating them.
If you recall from one of my theories, I believe Al was the previous iteration of the hero of the story in the immediate previous iteration of the world. Perhaps Al took Beatrice’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom from that previous world and is acting based on knowledge from Echidna, meaning there were more than just 2 copies since Al had a copy from his previous world. That may be why the First District’s watergate was opened right as Subaru would’ve fallen to his death, and that is ’cause Al’s acting with instructions from Echidna. In a previous write-up, I suggested that Al accepted Echidna’s contract unlike Subaru when he was the hero of the story, but maybe that wasn’t it, and Al has a different sort of arrangement with her. He must know Echidna on a personal level to some extent given his distaste for Emilia making others a priority before herself, which appears to be the reason Echidna appears to dislike Emilia even if she has a deep respect for Emilia and Satella if one of my previous theories is correct, showing that Echidna’s tastes rubbed off on Al.
When the show flashes back to Reinhard and Subaru, Regulus is exasperated that Emilia chose Subaru over him. He could understand if he had lost in love to Reinhard, the manliest of men there are, but losing to Subaru is an insult to him, especially since Regulus had forgotten about ever having met Subaru in Episode 53, which called back to Al saying that the Witch Cult had never lost before, and the reason they never made any preparations in case of a counterattack from their group was that no dragon would care what the ants at its feet are planning. This is also relevant later on with Otto, Felt, and the White Dragon’s Scales, what I had previously thought was an item but was actually an armed group employed by Kiritaka that helped Otto escape the first time he met Sin Archbishop of Gluttony, Lye Batenkaitos. Lye had no recollection about meeting Otto, which was shown by how Lye said so you met us (Roy Alphard) before meeting us (him) when Otto mentioned he thought the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony went by a different name, showing Lye completely forgot about Otto much like Regulus did regarding Subaru. Thank goodness I have exposure to someone who knows Japanese as he indicated that Crunchyroll botched the translation and that Otto said something along the lines of “You’re different from the one at the government office” instead of the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony went by a different name, which completely changed the translation. The correct translation shows that Otto thought that Lye was a fake Sin Archbishop at first, but this encounter now shows that Lye is the real deal, meaning there is at least two Sin Archbishops of Gluttony.
Lye then said that now that you’re all here you might as well help us look for the hero who will judge us. This is actually a callback to Season 2 with how Rem said that her great hero, Subaru, would bring them to justice. As Lye was the one who ate Rem’s memories and could likely feel the strong emotions Rem felt about how Subaru would defeat them, Lye hearing Subaru’s broadcast hyped him up big time for a showdown against Subaru. I don’t think the narrative will allow that to happen in this Priestella arc as Subaru’s group is really strapped for battle-ready personnel with how it’s just Garfiel and Wilhelm against Kurgan and Theresia, Julius and Ricardo against Roy, and Priscilla against Sirius. There’s just no way Subaru will be able to help with Regulus’s wives and Regulus himself and fight Lye, so this showdown will probably be postponed for a future arc.
Otto motioned to bring Lye to Subaru in exchange for his life as a negotiation tactic, but Lye was furious as he had a very visceral negative reaction to Otto being a merchant who would put a price on anything to line his pockets, so it’s clear he and Roy were either ripped off badly by a merchant or were slaves to one. As Lye prepares to attack, Otto used his Divine Protection to get two Water Dragons to attack Lye before it skips over to Julius and Ricardo engaging Roy Alphard, who is another Sin Archbishop of Gluttony. Interestingly enough, Julius forgo calling himself Juli when the last time he engaged Roy he was careful not to use Subaru and Crusch’s actual names, calling them Little Girl User and Valkyrie instead. Perhaps during his last battle with Roy, which was offscreen, Roy revealed he already knew Julius’s name, potentially due to Julius being a well-known member of the Royal Guard with very distinct physical features. With how episodes this season not being extended-length for the most part aside from Episode 57, it’s possible an explanation for Julius’s decision was cut out of the adaptation although it’s possible to still infer the reason for that decision.
Back to Subaru and Emilia, it seems Regulus’s wives truly fear Regulus on every level. Earlier in the episode, Subaru remarked that they have nerves of steel with how none of the wives reacted to Regulus threatening to kill them all if Reinhard and Subaru advanced any further. Now, they can’t come to believe Regulus can be beaten even though Reinhard had performed a miracle in front of their eyes with how he came back to life after dying due to his Divine Protection of the Phoenix. It’ll take a lot of work to win them over, but I believe Subaru and Emilia have to be able to do something about this, as otherwise they will never be able to stop Regulus’s apparent invincibility. As Reinhard hinted at earlier in the season, he has the ability to wish for any Divine Protection he wants, which is how he could transmit his thoughts to Subaru while fighting Regulus as it seems he received the same Divine Protection that Liliana has. It seems Reinhard also has super hearing as otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to hear what Subaru had been saying. It seems one of Subaru’s plans is to have Reinhard kick Regulus really far away to give them alone time with the wives, so Subaru quite possibly thinks Regulus’s wives might know the secret behind Regulus’s invincibility.
As we get back to Wilhelm and Garfiel towards the end of the episode, Garfiel takes a big blow from Kurgan, and his trauma from his fear of death has again reared its ugly head, and Garf wills himself to continue on as he reasons the only thing he’s good for is fighting. I wonder how they will get out of this situation as retreat is not an option given how completely stretched thin the forces of the side fighting the cult is, and if one part of their group fails they all fail since they must take seize control of all four control towers at once. Garf realizes that the black piece of mass is not actually Capella after all, which may be a blessing in disguise ’cause if she were really with the two corpse soldiers, he and Wilhelm would certainly die.
Felix is then caught off guard by Capella who pretended to be several people on his side, but she’s here to wreak havoc, and given Priscilla left Al to defend the government office, it looks like we’ll have an Al and Capella showdown even though they aren’t in the same room yet. Felix should not be able to put up a good fight against Capella due to Capella’s insane regeneration. A lot is happening this episode, but things are definitely moving along, and I’m looking forward to more strong content from this season.