Ramer Douglas Peucker Algorithmn (Python)

Question

I am fairly new to python and I am trying to understand what's happening here in these lines of code. I understand the algorithm and how it works but I am struggling to decode what is happening here in the code and how it is working to simplify the line segment.

This might sound a bit silly but if anyone could break this down for me it would be a great help! Cheers

Here is the Code:

def douglas_peuker_recursive(point_list, e):
    dmax = 0
    index = -1
  
    for i in range(1, len(point_list)):
        point = Point(point_list[i])
        line = LineString([point_list[0], point_list[-1]])
        d = point.distance(line)
        if d > dmax:
            index = i
            dmax = d
    if dmax > e:
        r1 = douglas_peuker_recursive(point_list[:index+1], e)
        r2 = douglas_peuker_recursive(point_list[index:], e)
        return r1[:-1] + r2
    else:
        return [point_list[0], point_list[-1]]

Thank you!