For one-and-a-half episodes, Ava was able to hold out on the truth with her lie tightly packed away. With each insinuation of Ava's inherent "good" and truthfulness, a crack would form, and ultimately it just became too much for her to keep in any longer.
She chose a fairly poor location to tell Deborah the news: in a crystal shop. Being that Deborah is Deborah, she decides to take every rock around her and fire at Ava, who attempts to duck as each one whizzes past her head. At one point, the shop owner even yells, "not the tourmaline!"
Right after this happens, Jimmy alerts Ava that he was able to get the writers to stop the email from being used or distributed, but he was just about an hour too late.
Later on that night after the crystal-throwing intermission, Deborah stops by Ava's room and the two grab some late-night eats at a local diner. Towards the end of the meal, she forces Ava to painfully read over each sentence of the email she originally sent to the writers. Some highlights include:
"She once asked me to perjure myself for her in traffic court."
"She once refused an employee maternity leave because she thought the baby was ugly and said, 'Why would she want to be at home with that thing?'"
But then there was this:
"The truth is, Deborah Vance is a bully—and the worst kind. One who thinks she's the victim. Every person in her life is on her payroll and would never be around her if their livelihoods didn't depend on it—myself included. It's her own fault she's so lonely. Though she's too selfish to ever admit it, I think that's why she needs her adoring fans: because no one in her life actually loves her."
Oof.
Somehow holding together the probable urge to throw condiments at her, all Deborah did was instruct her to pay the check. And then drove Ava home, but not before laying down a massive truth right in front of her face.
"You know, you're good at writing for me," Deborah says. "And I thought it was because you understood me. But it's because you're just like me. You're as selfish and cruel as I am."
The next day, Deborah picks up Ava from the hotel in her car with a coffee in tow that she got especially for Ava.
"It's not poisoned," Deborah says to her as she skeptically sniffs the coffee.
Okay, things are good now? I guess Deborah's just going to blow this whole thing off as something that just happened out of anger. But wait—not so fast.
After Deborah tells Ava that it's basically water under the bridge and that they'll continue working together for the new tour, Ava gets a call from Jimmy who tells her that Deborah is suing her for violating her NDA.
"Haven't you ever been in litigation before?" Deborah cheerfully asks Ava. "It'll be a good learning experience for you—an expensive one, too."
