Through forgiving Danny we see that Alice has learned that even the worst things that happen to you in life are not always a malicious act. Alice has learned the two very core things about parents she was robbed of knowing as a child - which is that they love you more than anything in the world, want you to have the best life possible, and that they’re going to fuck it up. 

Sometimes they only know what happiness means for them. Maybe they want you to have the best life possible by being pious and getting into heaven, but they don't realize that's not what you live your life for. Maybe they pressure you into a field because they think having money will give you the best life. 

Sometimes they’re socially or religiously indoctrinated, and unaccepting. Sometimes they’re mentally ill, sometimes they’re an addict, and sometimes they’re dead. Whatever the circumstance, it doesn’t change the fact that person who loves you is still there, even if they're trapped by their own circumstances, and can’t get over their own problems to show up for you. It’s a terrible shame for both people that they can’t get out of their own way to show up and have a loving relationship with you, the person who they care about more than anything. 

Alice starts coming around to the mindset of feeling that love from her parents and letting go of her past abandonment wounds by accepting that the way her parents fucked up was by dying. And Danny's way of fucking up was by being a giant pussy with self esteem issues, but both of their fucks up doesn't mean that there's any loss of love there. Because they were just doing what they thought was right, their best. And that god-damn poem is read in voice over.

When this girl finally has her moment, the-shift, her inner wound is symbolically healed with the knowledge she has gained in her experience she is able to  begin accessing a sort of confidence and feelings of belonging and capability that she would've had if she had her parents in her life growing up.

When she understands their love and that the true tragedy of that situation is that way she felt the entire time, lacking those gifts of a caring, mindful parent, because they weren't around to give her all the love they had for her, and impart the acceptance and belonging and joy they wanted her to have. Tragedy in the pain that would cause to a parent looking at their child. When she sees this feeling within herself she is healed, giving her access to all of the abilities that allow her to rise to the extreme occasion she is about to be placed in. 

Alice is coming to understand that the tragedy of her life is not that she was abandoned and unloved. The tragedy is that she was loved immensely and seen in a novel way, such as every child, but the two people that emanated those feelings of love and warmth weren't there to show her who she is, and it's an equal tragedy on behalf of her parents that their beloved daughter grew up not feeling the immense affection they felt for her. 

Alice is stricken with grief over how she's spent her life dedicated to self-torment, based on lies. It’s a cosmically misfortunate circumstance that she didn't have people around to reflect how marvelously special and adored she is. Spending so many years of life hating a scared child who was the victim all along. Aligning herself with all sides against her, because she thought that's what she deserved. She’s been the victim of brainwashing and worked actively to hate and passively to ignore a scared hurting little human being with feelings and dreams, and the want for love in their life, and the need for protection from those who can hurt them. The only person who could've loved and protected her more than anyone else was working against her, because she was tricked into hating herself.

Up to this point it seemed that Alice was just fumbling her way across the story as a leaf through a parking lot, doing one hail-Mary after another along with her friends. It seems Alice is turning a corner and has the path of possibility in front of her, but her foundations are still shaky. 

Now, finally able to see herself in a loving way, Alice starts getting a little excited about getting to be worthy, and how amazing it will be when life gets back to normal - where she can begin feeling as free and at-ease as the people around her. All while tempering expectation, of course, in an effort of shame-based humility. Her plans and actions have still not come from outside of her shell and are based on her new need to "believe in herself, but not too much." Unfortunately, this is what does-Alice-in.

She doesn’t want to get a big head about herself. Inside she feels that is a recipe for disaster, and that she will be punished with some poetic justice. She’s uneducated on the difference between confidence and arrogance. When you’ve never had reason to trust the world, confidence feels like arrogance and a set-up for great pain when, inevitably, the rug is pulled out from beneath you. 

This story isn't about her getting too big for her britches, this story has always been about setting herself free in order to be the special person that she is. She's toying with the notion that she may be a protagonist, but this girl is here to become our hero. Which she is not yet, and therefore, living and acting out of old shame-based ways, she cannot be victorious.

During our climax, Alice and Cleo are closing in on a mad-scientist type who is the operational mind behind an evil plot of corporate sabotage under the direction of Evelyn, our main adversary.  After neutralizing a group of macabre bikers that had a protection-deal with the scientist, and now faced with the seemingly ceremonial task of apprehending him at his personal secret lab Alice and Cleo walk into the final stand of the scientist.

Alice catches stumbling Cleo, who is fatally wounded in the clash, and holds her in her final moments as she dies in Alice's arms, sending her into an atomic rage. Everything Alice struggles to hide and control is let out in an implosion that ends with the scientist dead, along with Alice's chance of returning to a normal life. 

Her container is now broken, the hurt child, the brawler forged to protect her, and the shattered Alice are on the floor. And now what Alice had been putting off, belief, acceptance, and integration of herself must be tried.