Also, I think part of the reason I quit watching was that I didn't like Sister Clarice and I couldn't figure out if the show wanted me to like her or not. Which made for some dissonance.

This is not just you. David Eick has said that Clarice was supposed to be a Baltaresque villain/comic relief character, but it totally wasn't working, so that had to do some re-jiggering with the character (and in fact, reshot a lot of her scenes). I don't think they ever landed on anything that worked, honestly.