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Ali's finale monologue rings hollow due to his course of action, intentional irony?

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When Ali opens up at his last AA meeting, he talks about the people at fault for addiction. He talks about the unforgivable, the enablers, the people actively benefitting from the sale of fentanyl, and how it's a vicious/hopeless systemic cycle.

Sure, it felt great to watch Alamo suffer an unexpected death and betrayal. While Ali's final scenes are cool/theatrical, it appears to me as incongruent with his final monologue. Because in the end, what will killing Alamo really do other than make him personally feel a sense of justice? I can see it lining up with his sense of hopelessness, but his actions are perpetuating the cycle he had made him feel hopeless to begin with. I understand Rue's death as a breaking of his faith, a breaking of his character and slight reversion to his military past. But he had spent so many years as disciplined, as seeing the bigger picture and understanding his own faults. It felt not so real/immersive that the first thing he thought of was retribution.

The bigger picture being that Alamo is small fry compared to all that is out there, in terms of perpetuating addiction and causing misery. Someone will replace him, addicts will buy from someone else, the cycle will continue. Ali also likely played a role in addiction and in distribution of drugs in his past. Not to mention the misery left in the wake of Operation Desert Storm, which he partook in.

Wouldn't it make more sense for him to feel unforgiving towards himself rather than violent towards others? He talks about how some actions are unforgivable, why wouldn't he apply to the same to himself? He's one of the most self aware and intelligent figures in the show. Is this meant to be an irony, like it was for Rue when she realized that the burning bush was a lie as she also saw it happening at Laurie's?

It also feels disingenuous and potentially a reflection of Levinson's politics that Ali somehow finds salvation in some racist right wing religious isolationists in the middle of nowhere Texas? Is this also a farce? Is this also meant to add to the irony of his actions? Perhaps I'm reading it too literally.

Don't get me wrong, I find myself frustrated with people who watch this show at face value, and see the things that happen in the show as an advocating for what's happening. I think it's pretty clear that it's critical of modern perspectives of the sex industry, for example. However, I find the show's tone to be uncritical of police/the feds and their role in drug trafficking. I think this would have made the show more interest, real, and critical of the right people.

I read Ali's standoff in his military garb as painting the military response in a positive light, I mean, he was taking down one of the show's greatest villains as he was dressed up as military personnel.

I think the show is pretty lopsided in terms of who is seen to be most at fault for the systemic drug issues in the US. I don't really need the show to advocate for everything I personally advocate for, not in the slightest, but I must say the ending felt forced. It felt like pure entertainment, with an almost knee-jerk GO USA type of ending. There were layers to the rest of the show, in terms of political debates that have been ongoing. The ending felt hamfisted, like it was uncritical of Ali and his decisions.

I'm open to being just a boring weirdo who is reading into things too much, but I haven't seen any convincing arguments that the ending is coherent.

Posted Jun 12, 2026, 8:19 PM UTC

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