Buffy musings: A Fall from Grace

So here we are, halfway through the meat of Season 3. Time for a retrospective.

• First of all, let's be honest here: Buffy suddenly being a girl scout rings false. Remember that between "Homecoming" and "Revelations," she has at least shared liability for the deaths of three humans. And, just to turn on my time machine for a minute, the Knights of Byzantium from Season 5 would like a word about Buffy's "never directly kill a human" code. Hell, at the end of this season, father-figure Giles is going to ram a sword into the Mayor's chest, and Buffy's not going to bat an eye at that. (Then again, Giles - and Wesley once he moves to Angel - are the two characters to whom the normal rules just don't apply. Cf. B5.22, "The Gift," and, well, just about every Wes-central moment on Angel from A3.16, "Sleep Tight" onward.)
• On the other hand, Faith allying with the Mayor, who has vampire minions, is also problematic, given Faith's "Vampire, Slayer, dead vampire" line in "Revelations." If she is supposed to be the pure uninhibited warrior, and especially if she wants to dodge responsibility for her crimes with the "I'm a Vampire Slayer" excuse, is it too much to ask  that she, y'know, slays vampires?
• To sneak ahead with the time machine, I'd like to point out that it's Angel who starts to get through to Faith, and it's Wes - prim, British-flag-up-the-butt Council toady Wes - who screws that up. The contrast with Faith's arc on Angel's fourth season is amusing.
• Buffy and the others can't do squat to help Faith right now because Faith doesn't accept Buffy's viewpoint as any sort of valid (man, if only Faith could walk a mile in Buffy's shoes or something...) 
• We can argue about the other circumstances of Faith's fall until the cows come home, but the decision to ally with the Mayor is Faith's and Faith's alone. That's a conscious decision to become evil. Period.

 That's where we're at now. Reviews resume Thursday with "Enemies."