The Mirrored Road into the Interior

So, I finished watching Buffy and I've read all of the Season 8 comics excluding the one that comes out today. The last several episodes really felt off.
Sort of spoilers:

















Unrelated to the above, I loved watching the evil Captain Reynolds. Very much.
Back on track: It started with the whole group turning on Buffy. I can buy it. Giles was setting up for it for the last several seasons. Dawn has pretty much the same short sightedness with her sister that Buffy has with Dawn, though she definitely went for the pain above and beyond the call of duty. Anya is Anya. The potentials shouldn't have split straight down the middle, but at least some of them should have opted to go with Buffy. Any other time, Xander would have gone with her, his problems were understandable, pain and loss will do that (and we never see him grieve for his eye...) And Willow. I can see her walking away from Buffy. (Faith doesn't betray her, no matter what Buffy wants to believe initially. Faith didn't want the split, she just wanted Buffy to stop and see what was going on around her.) Andrew? He's a follower at this point in his story arc, and Buffy's never considered him part of her group.

All of the above wouldn't have bothered me much, except that there was no chance for healing and only one character from the above list was even aggrieved over her actions. (Possibly Xander too, but we aren't particularly shown that.) Faith hates what happened, but it really wasn't her fault. Dawn is the only one who is upset over what she did, and it never really leads to anything.

One assumes that, based on the Comic, Xander and Buffy at least partially made up in the year and change after the fight at the Hellmouth. They are much too easy with each other for it not to have happened.
Giles has possibly damaged their relationship beyond repair, and he keeps doing it in the comic. He's been going down that path for several years though.
She and Dawn seem back to the status quo, but then they have a history of not mending fences and just moving on.
She and Willow are well along the path to losing their best friend. They've been growing apart during seasons 6 and 7, and you'll notice that the last half of 7 went entirely without the "you're my best friend" line that comes up every 7 to 10 episodes throughout the series. Willow hurts Buffy, and there is little or no sense of remorse shown in the last episodes of season 7. This lets Buffy force Willow into actions she might not have tried otherwise, but the rift is not healed by a year and a half later (the comic books.) They are still connected, but it feels like that's falling apart, that they've hurt and been hurt so much without any attempt to make amends or even apologize that one wonders if they'll ever weather it. Especially with Willow avoiding Buffy.
Buffy's not the leader of a mid sized team of Slayers, but save for Xander, she's alone. Of course, the last couple of seasons of the show have her feeling that bing the slayer makes her alone anyway, but the events in the show demonstrate that she prevails because she isn't isolated. (Twilight has picked up on that issue. He sees how her distance from her core will cause her to fail and falter. It is really too bad that her friends can't see it too.)

Well, this isn't likely to be my last Buffy post, but they should start to trickle off now.