I am better with you

tl;dr i loved it, great ending to a great show, made me want to go back and rewatch because it feels like a well-constructed whole story, incredibly hard to do!! I didn't doubt they would pull it off but still, always a relief

very moved by following ava into her next thing as the episode opens the way we followed deborah into, like, the show hacks, in the pilot. good shit

that's sort of my overall feeling is like, the very-ending felt open to me in a really pleasant way, idk exactly what comes next for anyone but I get the sincere feeling that something is coming next for everyone I cared about, deborah and ava but also jimmy and kayla and marcus. these are people with life left to live, they're not like Done just because the show is over. again, very hard to do!

LOTS of really good Acting in the finale, but i could watch deborah writing in her joke notebook every day for the rest of my life tbqh. give jean the emmy twice. idk I hear people's complaints about deborah's decisions in this episode but I ... disagree with them lmao I think everything she does here makes perfect sense for her. the notebook scene in particular captures the journey from "well I'm done" to "wait shit. no I'm not" in a really satisfying way. it would be much less satisfying if she changed her mind as a result of ava's (also very well acted) meltdown. she can't stay for ava, for a variety of reasons including that she just wouldn't do that!! that's just not deborah.

related, i've seen a few people nod to the "don't leave me" echo, which is great and obviously intentional. but 2 me, the unspoken final echo of the finale scene IS the end of the pool scene which I haven't seen shared much, which is deborah turning around and beamingly saying to ava, "you've got it!" like if deborah doesn't change her mind about her plan, ava will still float.

which still makes it rich that she does change her mind!! the realization that she wants to keep doing this thing and she wants to keep doing it with ava. something about her in the airport and deborah was going to paris and then zurich with or without ava, but the obvious strong preference is to do the last trip to write the next hour to laugh with ava. I find that all very moving and poignant and true to the show and these characters. will you write it with me? always. I am better with you-type shit. God only knows what I'd be without you-type shit.