Pam & Tommy Finale: How It All Falls Apart for Pamela and Tommy, What Happens to Rand Gauthier

It remains a tonal mismatch with now the entirety of the series, making it more inexplicable that it was conceived, filmed and included in the final edit. This ultimately turned out to be a pretty serious take on a very serious and traumatic experience for all parties involved.

In this final chapter, which held no jokes or laughs or prosthetic penises at all, we saw the moment that Pamela finally had enough -- as well as our only real hint at the purported domestic trauma she endured in her marriage -- and the moment that Rand finally had an epiphany.

We don't know if that moment is accurate or not, and it is as deeply stupid as this iteration of Rand appears to be. Apparently, Tommy telling him that Pamela didn't deserve what Rand had put her through by releasing the tape didn't register. But a psychic.

Even more amazingly, despite everything, Rand was still playing the pity game even as he stepped into her parlor, telling him that he can't believe bad things are happening to him when good things are supposed to be happening.

In the premiere, Rand was painted as a sympathetic character, a victim of Tommy being a complete and total a-hole to him for no real reason than because he could. We appreciated the show for painting this more well-rounded picture of Rand, because he turns around and does some pretty awful things.

Then, he never really seems to get why what he's done is awful. Instead, he just whines and complains with a "woe is me" attitude, like he's this victim of the world rather than realizing he's the orchestrator of his own fate.

Now, in this final episode, Rand comes full circle and is again painted in a somewhat sympathetic light. The damage that he wrought on Pamela and Tommy can't be undone at this point, and he's somehow legally gotten away with stealing the safe and all of its contents, even though he's essentially admitted it to everyone that exists.

But after his psychic reading, Rand realizes that bad things are happening to him because he wronged Pamela by releasing the tape. He destroyed her career -- with an assist from how bad "Barb Wire" was -- and definitely created a whole new level of tension into her marriage.

He traumatized her beyond belief for years as she battled the men in her life to try and stop the spread of the tape. And yet, this epiphany for Rand wasn't as much about Pamela as it was about trying to figure out why bad things kept happening to him. It was still Rand thinking very much about Rand.

The only hint we get that maybe he actually did some growing wasn't when he tried to apologize to Pamela through her car window, or when he apologized to a Pamela lookalike, but when he actually apologized to his ex-wife Erica. It was in that moment that he maybe seemed to get at least a bit of the magnitude of his actions in a capacity that had nothing to do with him.

Unfortunately, the journey for Tommy Lee also ended much the way it started. He was a huge a-hole in the premiere episode, blasting and lashing out at Rand for no reason. And in this finale, he put Pamela in his crosshairs.

We can understand his resistance to the idea of selling the rights to their sex tape to Seth Warshavsky, the webcam guy who took the scandal to the next level when he began streaming it online for free. But his argument had some merit.

It was legal blackmail, but he wasn't wrong that putting it behind a paywall would slow the spread. Tommy may barely understand the internet, as evidenced by Nikki Sixx painfully talking him through loading a website, but Pamela understands it more than he does.

Tommy also struggles to see through his anger and righteousness. Yes, he was wronged, but that ship sailed a long time ago. Yes, Seth is exploiting that for personal profit and gain, but he was also offering to buy the tape.

Pamela's mission was the same as it's always been. Make this thing be over and go away. If someone owns the rights, that person can go after copycat videos online and get them taken down. Then, the only copy online would be one people would have to pay for.

It's already out there in VHS format and millions have seen it, but this could be the difference between millions and absolutely everybody getting their hands on it.

Again, we saw Pamela try to explain to Tommy the difference, but he insisted that he was as much a victim as she was. Then why did she have to suffer through a humiliating deposition with pervy old men while he got to laugh and joke with the guys about how well hung he was? They are not the same in this. Tommy became a hero, Pamela was seen as a whore.

And yet, after he apologized yet again for his abhorrent behavior, it was clear that Pamela was done. And she wanted him to sign over the rights to the tape. She was done letting him take the lead because all it did was make things worse.

It was here that we got a hint of what was purportedly much worse between the two of them as Tommy again lost his temper and trashed part of the living room before relenting and signing. When she said, "It's done," the double meaning was clear. The tape was as contained as it was going to be ... and their marriage was done.

Pamela was very much alone in this journey because no one really took the time to understand what this experience was for her. This is what she became known for, and not in a good way. Tommy's anatomy took center stage for his part, and people were impressed. Yes, it's still exploitative, but not at all on the same level as how Pamela was perceived.

And yet, all of her efforts to advocate her point of view, or express how she thought things should be handled were dismissed and ignored by Tommy, their attorneys and basically all men in the world.

In the end, she did get Tommy to sign the papers, and she did begin to separate herself from him after the birth of their child. Lily James did an incredible job of pairing terror with resolve in the scene where Tommy was trashing the living room.

She played Pamela with a strength many wouldn't have attributed to her, as well as an optimism and enthusiasm that was slowly and painfully eroded through the course of these eight episodes. By the same token, the allure of the bad boy faded just the same.

Tommy didn't really grow and change at all through the course of the series, still ending it as an impulsive jerk with an out-of-control temper who thinks he understands everything and knows what's best.

Pamela changed monumentally through this journey. She learned to stand up for herself, to stop minimizing herself to make others happy. She learned to start creating boundaries for her body and her autonomy. Ultimately, she learned to value herself and her happiness.

The coda revealed what most people already know, and that's that the marriage of Pamela and Tommy ended in violence, and an attempted reconciliation fizzled as well. Nevertheless, as we saw in those early moments when Pamela agreed on a private trip for the two of them, that the passion and love ran deep between them. It just wasn't enough to overcome everything else that came with it.

Our last moments with Rand were when Seth confronted him in his apartment, looking for the original of the tape so he can offer a better quality behind his paywall. Rand tried to have his moral integrity, but caved under the $10,000 offer. We're not sure why Seth didn't just tell him that he had the rights, now, as that would have removed any moral qualifications.

But it indicated that Seth is still a bit weak and pathetic. He also bailed on paying back Butchie -- who'd offered to let him off the hook for 10k. Instead, he gave that money to Erica. We find ourselves questioning the likelihood that this actually happened.

We also never get any closure on how he could have gotten away with that, considering that meant he didn't pay Butchie back? Did he go back to being a tough? He's apparently still in California, so that particular dangling plotline left us with many questions.

In the end, the tape appears to have outlasted Pamela and Tommy's marriage and even Rand's notoriety. Seth wound up selling it to Vivid Entertainment for $15 million. The closing words noted that many people don't even believe Rand was the guy who stole it in the first place when he does tell them. The tape is just one of those things that is.

In the wake of this dramatized series, which famously did not include involvement from either Pamela or Tommy -- despite efforts being made to connect them with it -- Pamela announced that she will be telling the real truth and her own story in an upcoming documentary film. The cultural impact of their story and the tape continues.