If “Rollin” was Josh’s signature episode, “Symbolic Exemplar” is Ali’s time to shine. We’ve learned, over the course of the season, that she dabbles with interests and modes of self-expression. She’s no longer eating dairy-free or twerking-out; her interest in weed is inconsistent; she’ll stop and start expensive hobbies just as long as Maura is willing to foot the bill. She’s also searching to understand herself, and her gender presentation is a big part of that. In “The Wilderness,” when Ali asks Maura to pay for her gender studies class at Santa Monica College, Maura waxes nostalgic about Ali’s “gender confusion” during childhood and insinuates that they may be on the same life path, casually mentioning that “some people say it runs in the blood.” I wouldn’t go that far – to me, Ali seems quite comfortable in her identity as a woman – but it’s true that she seems less confident in how she expresses her identity than in what her identity actually is. Remember, this is the Ali who chopped off her hair in response to receiving a cosmetic counter makeover at the mall.