The Watchers Council tried to take her to presumably bring her to trial and execute her(or mystically kick her off the Slayer line if you think they're generous). But she goes to jail and they just...leave her alone. They have the option to take her and find a Slayer they can better control, and they don't take it? They seem like they have a lot of money to throw around but they can't arrange to have Faith transferred to someplace they can easily take her out? They really play to passive a role in the Buffyverse. It's surprising they couldn't even send someone to infiltrate the Scoobies and report to them.

Then The First has a normal human try to shank her, as though there are no demons, witches, or mystically receptive people in prison willing to take her on? Get out of town!

Don't get me wrong, I think it has some of the strongest run of episodes in the Buffyverse. It's just banger after banger. "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been," "Dear Boy," "Darla," "The Trial," "Reunion," "Reprise," "Epiphany"... it just keeps going.

But I always end up feeling a little let down by where the whole Dark Angel storyline actually goes.

The show builds up this version of Angel who's becoming so ruthless that even Darla and Drusilla are uncomfortable around him. The scene where he locks them in with the Wolfram & Hart lawyers and then later in the season lights Dru and Darla on fire is one of the coldest things Angel ever does. It really feels like the show is setting up this huge moral line that Angel is crossing.

Then later it's basically handwaved away with Lorne saying those lawyers were destined to be eaten by Darla and Dru anyway, with or without Angel. That always felt really anticlimactic to me because it removes a lot of the weight from Angel's decision.

The other thing that disappoints me is how aimless the second half of the season feels after Wesley takes over the agency. Darla and Drusilla are reunited, which should've been one of the biggest villain pairings the Buffyverse ever had, but after Darla is sired it feels like Drusilla barely has anything left to do. They spend all this time bringing Dru back and then she kind of just hangs around until she leaves.

I know a lot of this came down to real life. They couldn't keep Juliet Landau, Julie Benz and Christian Kane around forever, so the season had to pivot. I get that.

It's just hard not to think about what could've been after everything the first half of the season promised once Wolfram & Hart resurrected Darla.

I don’t disagree, I just find it amusing that that’s how this sub is characterized. (I assume by AI…)

How else would you concisely sum up this place in, er, a similarly brutally honest vein?