It's not even a problem that Joyce and the Scoobies are so overwhelmingly shitty to Buffy this episode. That's a valid story to tell. It's just that either you need to make Buffy less sympathetic, so you can tell a story about a group of people who are all hurting and lashing out at each other, or you need to have the Scoobies/Joyce realise their callousness and apologise. Not only does the episode fail to address that, but it actually ends by putting the fault on Buffy! Who is not blameless, but any assertion that she is only, or even primarily, the one at fault here, is proved ludicrous by the rest of the episode. The episode's sympathies end up lying with the people that are shown to be the least sympethic by the events of the episode!