Warning: Major spoilers ahead

All endings have a beginning. We head back to earlier in Ali’s life, where he is seen smoking a crack pipe in a motel room with a sex worker. We then see him at the dinner table with his wife and daughters – still high. His wife asks him where he’s been, and when he doesn’t answer she storms away and a fierce argument ensues.

He meets up with the sex worker again, and he later wakes up in hospital with a scar on his chest after a heart operation. He refuses painkillers from a nurse.

From that moment on, he starts going to Narcotics Anonymous, finds religion, and vows to dedicate his life helping others. Among them is a young boy named Ammanuel, who is struggling to stay clean, and he promises that the future will be bright if he can keep himself on the straight and narrow. Later, Ali is seen attending his funeral.

Despite the setback, Ali continues to try and do good for fellow addicts and show up for them. But over time, especially during the pandemic, more people die despite his best efforts. He keeps note of them all, dozens of names, in a memoriam book – something Rue refers to as “The Book of the Dead” - as a reminder of how addiction often ends.

In present day, Big Eddy returns to work for Alamo, now carrying a stapled stomach and a stoma. Alamo pokes and prods at it, mocking him for “having a new booty hole” before demanding he cover it up.

He’s still mad at Big Eddy for spilling the safe code during the hold-up, and Eddy admits his failure. As penance, Alamo puts him on the Mexico job with Laurie’s men – the same ones who shot him. Eddy is unhappy about it, but does as he’s told.

Driving one of Alamo’s ambulances over to Laurie’s, they get to work modifying the van ahead of the drug run.

Rue visits Lexi, who is allowing her to crash at hers. Lexi is busy writing the new story of LA Nights, but after her religious experience Rue is keen to talk about it. She believes that the burning Joshua tree and the final texts she heard on the CD before the crash was God revealing himself to her, slipping in that she’s been working undercover for the DEA, as she rambles on.

Eventually, Lexi tires of the distraction, Bible thumping and dubious self-righteousness and she snaps, saying it’s obvious she’s using again. Rue angrily denies this and the two enter into an argument, with Lexi angrily telling her it’s no wonder her mother cut ties with her. Rue storms out – but notices something off about Cassie’s apartment across the way.

When she knocks on the door to check on Cassie, someone holds a gun with silencer on the other side of the door, but she walks away before they pull the trigger.

Armenian gangster Naz and Cassie talk on the phone after she receives Nate’s finger in the mail. Naz assures her Nate’s fine, but she needs to start paying off his debt.

Cassie frantically tries to reinstate her OnlyFans account, but there’s nothing she can do – the action was permanent. Her account, and small army of followers, are all gone.

To make matters worse, LA Night studio execs are unhappy at showrunner Patty Lance’s decision to hire Cassie given her background in adult content. Patty tries to defend Cassie, but ultimately folds, agreeing she’s not worth the controversy.

Instead, Patty tells Lexi that the network loved the storyline she wrote for the show, and requests she fire her sister on her behalf. Lexi, delighted that she’s finally being recognised for her work, happily agrees.

Maddy on the other hand, is fired by her boss for misrepresenting the agency to get Cassie the LA Nights audition. When she discovers Cassie deleted her OnlyFans too, she hits the roof and storms over to her apartment to find Cassie wailing on the floor. She has no sympathy for Cassie, saying she never should have let her back into her life, slapping her across the face before coming up with a game plan.

While she can’t get the OnlyFans account back for her, she sends a tip to TMZ that Cassie is having dinner with Dylan Reid. On the way out of the restaurant, Dylan and Cassie are caught on camera by the TMZ crew. Cassie then seduces Dylan at her apartment – discretely taking note of the unlock code on his phone.

After exhausting him with some particularly athletic sex, Cassie grabs Dylan’s phone he grabs some water, uploading a message to his Insta tagging her and going public with their bedroom activities, then secreting the phone under the mattress to hide the avalanche of notifications that follow. Meanwhile, the parched Dylan accidentally scoops up Nate’s severed finger, which Cassie had put on ice, and drinks a glass of nice refreshing finger water. He returns to bed none the wiser about Cassie’s secret post or the severed digit.

The next morning, Maddy comes around to check in and shares that her new account already has 100,000 subscribers. But she’s distracted when she spots Nate’s finger – still in the glass that Dylan drank from. Cassie finally comes clean about what’s going on back at home.

At Naz’s funeral parlor, Nate is being held captive. Zip tied and beaten, he promises Cassie will come through with the money. Nate measures him up, noting that at 6”5 he’ll need a specialist coffin made.

Rue visits Ali, who makes her pancakes. She tells him about Bishop’s veiled threat against her mother. Ali promises to protect them, but Rue says it won’t stop with her, so she doesn’t have a choice but to follow their demands – at least until the DEA swoops in and arrests them.

She promises that whatever Alamo has planned in Mexico, it’ll be her last run. She shares her religious experience and while Ali believes her, but highlights that she has misinterpreted the last lines from the Bible she heard on the CD. While God did offer to Moses a Promised Land, Moses died before he ever saw it.

Rue shares her plans to go to a “Homestead” in Texas. She shares an address on Jerusalem Road in El Paso, which she believes holds the key to her salvation. Ali questions if she asks herself about the fentanyl she’s smuggled, and if it's ever killed someone. Rue considers this while examining medals and patches from his time serving in the Gulf War. She asks if there’s ever hope of being redeemed, and he replies that it’s there if someone wants it to be. She believes putting Alamo and Laurie behind bars is a good start.

Ali begs her once again to not go back to Alamo’s, and offers to take her to her mother somewhere safe the next morning. Rue, knowing she could never forgive herself if something happened to her, agrees.

At the Silver Slipper, Kitty excitedly shares that she's going to get a BBL, with Alamo sending her to Mexico to get it on the same ambulance that will be doing the drug run. The girls are happy for her, but question Alamo’s vested interest in giving her plastic surgery. They tell her not to die, while Magick sends her off by telling her they love her.

The next morning, the DEA prepares their sting on Laurie and Alamo’s van. Big Eddy is driving with one of Laurie’s men, with Kitty and another dancer in the back as their cover for crossing the border. Both women are blissfully unaware of the plan, with Kitty eating ice-cream to increase the fat on her body so she’s ready for her butt enhancement.

On the way back, there’ll be 80kg of fentanyl hidden underneath the floorboards of the ambulance, with the DEA preparing to intercept.

Ali wakes up to see a note from Rue that simply reads “forgive me” – she’s decided to go after all. G drops her off at Laurie’s compound. Rue asks him to hit her in the face so she has a cover story for being there. He refuses, saying that he’s liable to knock her out and delay the plan. With no other option, she smacks her face off the dashboard, breaking her own nose, before heading to the house, claiming Alamo attacked her.

Over at Cassie’s, she is back making OnlyFans content when she gets a knock at the door. She runs to open it, only to be chokeslammed through a glass table by Artur, Naz’s henchman.

Hogtied and gagged on her bed, Naz tells her she has 72 hours to figure out where to get the $1million owed to him, as that’s how long Nate has before he dies of dehydration. We see he’s been buried alive in the plot of his retirement complex, a stone’s throw away from the protected flowers, with only a small tube providing him with oxygen.

Nate’s family look for him, but walk right over where he’s buried, unable to see him or hear his cries for help. As his brother drives off, a rattlesnake makes its way over the ground.

We’re back at the moment Rue knocked on Cassie’s door, but Cassie stays quiet and Rue leaves. Naz assures her everything will be OK.

Lexi gets a call from Maddy, who is worried she can’t get hold of Cassie. Lexi refuses to check on her as she’s disgusted at what they did to Dylan. She berates Maddy, asking what happened to her because she used to have a conscience. In her rant, she lets slip that Rue has been working for the DEA, then hangs up.

As Nate struggles in his underground coffin, the vibrations attract the rattlesnake, which finds it way into the breathing hole. While Nate thinks it's a rescue, thanking God for being saved, he realises his mistake when the snake slithers into the coffin. Unable to move, he is powerless has the snake crawl onto his chest and strikes.

At Laurie’s, Wayne, Harley, Faye and Mitch light a fire and enjoy a drunken evening, firing their guns into the air as Rue watches. Laurie questions where Rue’s phone is, but she says Alamo took it. It’s actually still in the car she was in earlier, with G keeping lookout. Jules tries to call, but G sends it to voicemail.

The gang start grilling Rue about why Alamo beat her, and she claims that it’s because he’s convinced she’s still working for them. Wayne claims her betrayal was a blessing in disguise as they then had a reason to come for Alamo. And he admits that were it not for her he’d never have met Faye – the love of his life. Nonetheless, as a card-carrying white supremacist, he still wants to find the right way to punish her.

Ultimately, they decide to make her be the one to pull the trigger on Alamo. Rue plays along, but when she goes to shake on it Wayne slices her hand with his pocketknife. Faye is upset by this, and the couple get into an argument before she storms off. In the meantime, Rue attempts to bandage the wound with duct tape.

Cassie calls Maddy, admits she’s in trouble, and puts her on speakerphone with Naz, who demands $1million.

With nowhere else to turn, Maddy goes to see Alamo, but is instructed by Magick to put on a chained bathing suit first. She’s hesitant, but Magick assures her to “not overthink it” and “trade 1000 bad days for a good life”.

Alamo’s waiting for her in a hot tub with champagne, and although she’s there to talk business to save Cassie, he tells her to get in. She relents, and when conversation turns to Rue, she lets slip about the DEA. Alamo will remember this.

He suggests he may help her situation (although mentions he tries to stay clear of the Armenians) but is “pent up” and needs to “relax”, before inviting her to come closer and tell him more about the problem. We don’t see what follows.

Alamo is later seen getting dressed, loading his gun, and packing a holdall. Maddy thanks him for helping her out.

Together, they head to Nate’s plot to meet with Naz. Alamo questions if Cassie is worth it, but Maddy insists she’s a “money tree”. He hands her the bag to make the deal, but remains in the car and watches on, checking the wind direction.

When a nervous Maddy makes the drop to trade for Cassie, Naz comments that Maddy must “really love” Cassie in order to do this for her. But on opening the bag, he asks if this is a joke... Before we can see what is in the bag, Alamo shoots him in the chest from a distance.

The henchman, Artur, considers retaliating, but Alamo tells him not to risk it. The dying Naz says something to Artur in Armenian - he drops his gun. Alamo instructs Maddy to pick it up for him, then delivers a killshot to Naz’s face.

As Artur is put in charge of an industrial digger to get Nate out of the ground, Maddy and Alamo talk about what just happened. It becomes clear Maddy had no idea Alamo was planning a double cross. She believed the bag had the money, but in fact was loaded with packs of playing cards. Despite never intending to pay the ransom, Alamo reminds Maddy she still owes him the million – translating it to 20% of all her earnings from here on out. When she raises the unfairness of this seeing as he incurred no loss, he coldly tells her it’s time she wised up.

As Nate is dug up, Maddy runs to Cassie, who is scrambling to get the box open to free her husband. Artur also helps, but it’s too late – Nate’s dead. The snakebite was lethal.

Cassie breaks down in tears, and Maddy looks down at her former love. She looks back at Alamo, realising everything she did was for nothing.

Back at Laurie’s compound, Faye continues her argument with Wayne, as he spouts white supremacist propaganda about there only being “black and white”. He tells her he plans to kill Rue once her part has been played. He then locks her in a room ahead of the “big day tomorrow”.

Later that night, Faye lets her out – holding Rue to her promise that they will steal the money from Wayne’s safe. While Wayne sleeps off a heavy night, they sneak into his room and try the key Rue had 3D printed, but it doesn’t work. Faye risks taking Wayne’s key straight from the side of his bed.

They successfully open the safe, but not without making some noise and Wayne begins to stir. Inside the safe is a rack of driving licenses belonging to women – including Rue’s friend Angel, who we note is a registered organ donor – but no money. Faye beings to panic, telling her to put everything back, and accusing Rue of lying to her about the cash.

Rue reminds her she was the one who claimed there was cash in the safe and tells her they’ve got to get out of there. Faye’s panic turns to anger – and she accuses Rue of being just like everyone else in her life. As Rue tries to calm her down and begs her to stay quiet, she screams out Wayne’s name and the episode cuts to black.

As Naz lays dying, his final words are directed towards his trusted henchman, Artur. However, unless you speak Armenian, you might be curious to know what these words were.

There’s no secret easter egg here, I’m afraid. Naz was simply ordering Artur to “kill him ... kill that son of a w”. As we know, Artur thinks better of this, and tells his boss “sorry” before dropping his weapon. Naz is fatally shot seconds later, and, discretion being the better part of valor, Artur assists Alamo in retrieving Nate.