So maybe overthinking (or underthinking I am dumb) but kinda have different view of last scene that that was Beth finally choosing herself? Not like I'm gonna choose to rob a store to help my friend I'm happy. But like straight up 'I am choosing myself and what makes me feel something and makes me feel happy and comfortable and where I fit' but like to an EXTEME level of 'eff my friend, eff my sister'
You're not dumb at all, anon! I do think that episode was very much about Beth choosing herself and deciding not to compromise what she wants anymore to cater to other people's needs.
That said, I don't think she was saying eff her friend or sister at all. She didn't ask them to stay in Detroit for her. She didn't try to make Ruby make the choice that Stan did earlier in the season, or make Annie compromise her plans with Ben and Kevin, and the girls have always split the money three ways, so both Ruby and Annie had the resources to go. Beth just realised that what she wanted was there in Detroit – crime, Rio, and her children, and that's what that ending focused on.
On top of that, a lot of Ruby and Annie's arcs have explored, at different times, their agency and independence away from Beth. We had that most notably with Annie in s3 as she came to the realisation that she wanted to protect Beth through Cohen and Rio's attempts to murder Beth, and with Ruby growing increasingly frustrated at people believing her to be Beth's sidekick – a sentiment articulated by Turner, Annie, and Stan – and what this season made clear was that Ruby's in crime for herself, because she enjoys it, and, as 4.16 reiterated, she thinks her family deserves the rewards that come from it.
Beth though I think has been a witness to that arc in Ruby, and it's why she's really tried to not force that sort of choice on her, and why she's consistently tried not to strain Ruby and Stan's relationship. She withdrew from Ruby in 2.08, and again this season, she told Stan what he wanted to hear so that she could give Ruby what she thought Ruby wanted. Self-sacrifice and self-deprivation has always been Beth's greatest love language, and she's done that for Ruby and Annie over and over again.
But if letting Ruby go for Stan was an act of loving Ruby, letting both Ruby and Annie do what they like and making a decision for herself based on, for once, her own needs, was an act of self-love.
Beth's aware the choice she's making is one that comes with loss and risk, but she finally cares enough about herself, and her own needs, to make it.
I also don't think Beth knows about Annie's arrest yet at the end of 4.16, which factors in a lot to that. I think the fallout of that discovery is one we would've seen with Beth, Ruby and Ben at the start of 5.01.
