Maybe I missed something, but everything you just said seems to be from your perspective, colored by how much you hate the two characters. (I guess that is in spirit of this show.) I feel fairly certain that they are all in on what happened that night and that Alison was ready to go to trial with the truth. Huh.

Drunkenly singing House of the Rising Sun is the only proper way to sing it.

I think that's very easy to explain, without making excuses for inconsistencies:

Pretty good finale to untangle this mess. You can go hunting for plot holes or accept it as catharsis. I guess it's the "poetic" ending, with all four of them involved to varying degrees to make this happen.

The first half of this episode is a shout-out to this show's mothership, In Treatment (and whatever the Israeli original's name is). This entire show is the logical continuation of that earlier show and the many different versions (I haven't seen, but would love to).

There are more and more inconsistencies, which is natural with this format. However, your example seems not well-chosen.

You say that like watching Helen poop for any amount of time is supposed to be at the bottom of someone's list.

Good point on Helen's new guy. I guess she is attracted to people who do not hide that they are some shade of asshole (slash fucked-up human being) and come off charming, somehow. As opposed to people like Max who fake it (badly) and come off as douchey and lame because everyone can see through it.

Generally, I feel that he is the most trustworthy person when it comes to POVs, but when we first saw him he was drunk and coked out. Then proceeded to drive his cab to Alison, having a nice and quiet conversation with her. Whereas from Alison's perspective he did help her out with the broken toilet, but was anything…

"It would be the penultimate blow to credulity, for Helen to even consider reuniting with her spineless, egotistical, self obsessed, self pitying and irredeemable ex husband."
Not true. Helen loves Noah. Or at least is used to him so much that she mistakes it for love. Not one scene ever suggested the contrary. No…

Very good observation. Why should those arguments work since that is exactly what didn't stop them to have a relationship to begin with. I believe that level of subtlety was intentional. Another very well-written and well-acted exchange in an episode full of them. In every single one of these scenes you can see why…

This was a fantastic episode, in which everyone had some truths to deliver. Especially Max vs. Noah was a beautiful and awkward and brutal exchange, because they were both right in pretty much everything they were saying. Just goes to show the complexity of defining and drawing the lines of friendship and rivalry.

The descent (gah!) of Noah Solloway and Joanie's arrival marks the low point of this show, throwing ALL subtlety out the window for the sake of slamming all plots against the wall. Combine all of this with so much ridiculousness and broad caricature. This show was always good for that, but not to this extent.…

Julia Goldani Telles is doing great work with this character. That Whitney wants to be a model came as no surprise. Unfortunately, the physique of the actress supports that all too much. Ok, I know she's a trained ballerina, but I hope she grabs a bite to eat one of these days, it's starting to look unhealthy.

Well, raising four children while (maybe) looking for another guy might be harder than trying to reconcile with your cheating husband. That said, Helen's forgiveness clearly runs deeper than that.

Nobody can act chemistry.

This show is from the makers of the original and remakes of In Treatment. As such, for someone familiar with any of those shows it was not too hard to guess from the start that these characters are somehow traumatized. For Alison and Cole it is obvious as to how. In Helen's and Noah's case it is less apparent, but the…

Already at this point it has been made clear that he was not spoiled, at all, but rather had to carry a huge burden in his childhood.

"iterally zero excuses to be the way he is"
Not sure if it was made more obvious at this point in the season, but he does have "excuses". As so often the case (in fiction as in life), it's childhood trauma.

The show runners will do you even better. In season 3 they will present both sides to the argument by referencing this part in Noah's book, pretty firmly taking sides.