I've just read Hal Duncan's awesome rant, which makes me realise that for all that I was angry and disgusted with the narrative in those episodes, I was not angry and disgusted enough. Have you seen it? Apart from the mistyping of some characters' names, he's right on, especially the metaphors mixup (something that really pissed me off in early S3 you might remember) and sheer absurdity of the americanocentrism.

The other Eight was lying there with blood coming out of her head
OK, I hadn't see the blood. Not cool Tyrol :(

It's not just that Avatar is better plotted, it's that it's better plotted, more consistent and coherent, has better world building AND has a better handling of very dark themes like genocide, terrorism, cycle of violence and how you break it.