And so it ends where it all began. Saturday's FA Cup final between Chelsea and Arsenal is a rerun of a fixture that proved so defining this season it should be awarded a blue plaque.
Usually, any given campaign can only be made sense of after myriad factors have been pieced together like a join-the-dots drawing. To attempt to quantify its singular most important moment would be akin to wandering into a rice field looking for the tastiest grain.
This season is different. Unique, even. It's possible to pinpoint where and when, to the minute (or at least 90 of them), Chelsea enacted a remarkable metamorphosis from omnishambles to champions-elect.