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And I really hope you don't mind a cringe reblog-with-additional-text because I actually have lots of thoughts on this and why Deborah's choice (all of Deborah's choices) in the finale worked beautifully for me and didn't at all detract from how much she loves Ava.

This clip that's been going around on tumblr, from a Vanity Fair interview with Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky, really reinforces and puts words to how I felt during the finale:

(The whole interview is fantastic and includes a truly incredible joke about a Hacks reboot that opens with Ava and Deb at Dyke Week in Provincetown. If you need help getting around the paywall, use archive.is or similar 😇)

I fervently believe that Deborah should have the right to go through with assisted suicide. For her, it's about not wanting to go through the undignified and painful and messy experience of harsh cancer treatments and it's about what that would be like from the outside looking in, that whole control thing. She's scarred from losing a friend to AIDS and her memories of his decline, scarred from her own experiences being misunderstood and lied about and even about her own complicity with those lies at certain pre-Ava parts of her career. Her grasp on her own legacy is often tenuous, but it's never been as strong as it is now, coming off the dual triumphs of her Central Park show and opening The Diva. Deborah is a selfish person (notice that nobody brings up DJ or her grandson specifically when appealing for her to reconsider), but this decision is bigger and more complicated than that because she's always been open about how her image as a public figure is incredibly personal for her. Choosing to die is about choosing to have the final say over her troubled relationship with her body, her troubled relationship with her career, and even her troubled relationship to how other people will remember her. It would have been a kind of victory, unleashing that ultimate control over her life and death.

The raw, overwhelming pain of Ava begging Deborah to get treatment and attempt to live longer is 100% meant to make us all feel distraught. We've spent five years watching the love between them grow, watching their creative partnership survive both external and internal threats, watching them develop a shared voice, and knowing that neither of them value ANYTHING more than the creative energy of that relationship. No matter what happens to Ava in the decades ahead, this relationship with Deborah is so much more than the spark that sets her career on fire--it's really a foundational, intimate, essential thing. Deborah is valid for wanting to choose when she goes, and Ava is valid for feeling abandoned and scared, and the show has to walk a really thin, delicate line to honor both perspectives simultaneously.

(Cutting for length, just a few more paragraphs behind the cut)

There are the very explicit—and understandable—reasons that Deborah made this choice, as discussed in so many places: control, the triumph of being on top and not wanting to risk the legacy she finally feels secure about, vanity, etc. All totally real, particularly factoring in the reality that when Deborah does feel out of control, her instinctive reaction tends towards fear (even if it often shows up as anger and/or cruelty—s1 finale, s3 finale, much of s4, etc). That all makes sense to me.

However, I also saw a lot of parallels to the s2 finale in this episode: Deborah making an executive decision that she knows will hurt Ava but that she feels is for the best. That was obviously different in the sense that her choice in s2 was explicitly her making a choice about Ava's life based on what Deborah thought was best vs. Deborah making a choice about her life that she knows will upset Ava, but the way Jean played the moment at the restaurant when Deborah first tells Ava about her diagnosis reminded me very, very strongly of the rooftop firing scene. Riding high, celebratory, and then a notable shift from their usual ease and laughter to Deborah looking away, bracing, and very clinically and dispassionately delivering shocking and painful news that she knows Ava will fight her on. In s2, firing Ava was very explicitly about not tying her down and feeling like she had so many opportunities ahead of her; already, Deborah knew that Ava wouldn't take advantage of them because Ava would be prioritizing Deborah.

By season five, and in this context specifically, Ava prioritizing Deborah looks vastly different. And we see that immediately! In the span of minutes they go from discussing Ava's new show and this incredible new chapter of her career to Ava unhesitatingly committing herself to accompanying Deborah to every appointment, managing her meds, and being by Deborah's side every step of the way. I think it's very reasonable to imagine that at least one factor in Deborah's decision was the same need she felt in season two: to not hold Ava back. 

It’s also easy to believe that their experience in Singapore underscored this idea; we know she still feels some shame around that, and I think at this stage Deborah probably views that time as Ava giving up everything for what ended up being eight months of Ava trying to hold Deborah together while she spiraled and deteriorated. It feels quite possible that Deborah was able to rationalize her assisted dying decision as a selfless act to her loved ones, most especially Ava, even if—as in season two—she knew that in the moment that wouldn't land. 

Given that there are a lot of selfish* considerations in play—including very reasonable ones like not wanting to suffer, not wanting to lose control of her body, vanity, etc.— I really can imagine Deborah trying not to dwell on those but instead hold tightly to the idea that this is the right thing not just for her but also for Ava. The story she tells about her friend Gino highlights both sides of that: the grief Deborah holds for his memory being polluted by his illness, and not wanting Ava to experience that, as well as Deborah not wanting to experience something like that or risk that being Ava’s memory of her. Especially at this stage, when Deborah has secured her legacy on basically every front—best show of her career, breaking records, the Who’s Making Dinner? spinoff safe in Ava’s hands, the establishment of The Diva—the only legacy that she has left to worry about is what her legacy will be to Ava. She wants it to be Paris, and laughter, and the very best of her vs. a painful illness and deterioration that Deborah knows Ava will be there for every moment of. *(using "selfish" as a neutral term with the understanding that bodily autonomy is in many ways an inherently selfish concept while also being an absolute human right.)

Of course, she changed her mind. @chainofclovers did such a great job of speaking to Deborah's potential thought process both in terms of making her original decision and then changing her mind, so I won't dwell, but I agree that the train station shift was in large part due to "every moment they've spent in Paris [...] still accumulating within her." The laughter, the dancing, their little world of two, but also putting back the salt and pepper shakers, Ava shouting at her for being selfish, the sheer devastation. 

The actual moment of decision was wonderful, both because she lives another day (thank GOD, I was not doing well!) but also because I do think that the decision to live was, in many ways, the decision that Deborah would see as the selfish one vs. a concession she's making. As said above, she makes the decision in a moment of joy and desire for more. She also makes that decision knowing that it means a hard path not just for her, but for Ava, too, because there’s no version of this path that doesn’t involve Ava’s life being upended and her prioritizing Deborah over her career and everything else yet again. The fact that Ava would never make any other choice doesn’t change the fact that Deborah may have complicated feelings about this, but beautifully, selfishly, and rightly, she decides to not only live and fight, but also to keep Ava tied to her vs. any concept of letting her go. Which really is beautiful, because Deborah is a selfish person. She always has been! For both of them, more time with each other in the context of Deborah's illness—and, of course, more time to create art together—is the selfish choice, even if surrounded by other considerations.

And this decision was wonderfully influenced by Ava even outside of Ava’s pleading. Deborah was originally taking what she considered the easier path; she chose the option that gave her the greatest amount of control, which for Deborah is almost always a sign that she’s making a decision out of fear. Making the harder, scarier choice out of hope and trust and love is absolutely reflective of Ava’s influence on her, as it has been through the whole series from her new hour at the end of s1 to quitting Late Night.