Buffy: Earshot (3.18)

One of the many, many reasons I adore this episode is because of the perfect Sunnydale High atmosphere it creates. It's probably the most obvious Buffy hour to develop the feel of a real high school community. We have Cordelia and the cheerleaders, the captain of the basketball team, the newspaper editor, the lunchlady, Jonathan, Buffy's English rival, bad boy Percy, big gay Larry. Even the quad is filled with people this week! I always admired Veronica Mars for creating such a realistic population of high school students, who drift in and out depending on whether or not they were needed, and Earshot really reaches that level of community. It feeds into the finale, too, but here it meshes so well with the idea that one of these people wants to commit mass murder.

The major theme of Earshot is that everybody hurts. When Buffy is cursed with the ability to hear thoughts, we as an audience become voyeurs of the true inner feelings of young people. There's the girl who hates her body, the boy who is lonely and outcast, the teacher sick of his ignorant students. Everybody in high school is in some kind of pain, even the ones that are thin and beautiful. Jonathan's inclusion in this episode works so well as a send-off to the high school years, even if it isn't quite the finale just yet. Here's somebody who's been around for so long, just floating in and out of the series but always being dumped on in some way. He's that quiet 'nothing' person that everybody is aware of in high school, and it's that horrible familiarity to a character like his that makes his attempt to kill himself so painful. Even more painful is Buffy's statement that while she doesn't dislike him, she doesn't exactly think of him much at all. It's that honesty that makes this story so real.

Following on from that theme is the fact that, while Buffy understands Jonathan's pain, she's not going to automatically embrace him as a result. "What am I, Saint Buffy? He's like three feet tall!" Buffy is still as shallow as the average person, but maintains that empathy and strength which make her a hero.

But away from the heavy themes of Earshot, it's important to note that Jane Espenson's script is ridiculously, insanely hilarious. Each character's inner thoughts are genius. Xander is obsessed with sex, Wesley is a Cordelia-obsessed loser, Oz is wonderfully Zen and introspective, Cordelia literally repeats everything that's on her mind. It's a testament to the strength of the characters that their thoughts are so believable.

Equally fun are the little moments of awesomeness. Giles walking into the tree, Cordelia straight-up asking a teacher if he's planning on killing a bunch of people tomorrow (followed by the genius "It's for the yearbook"), the revelation that the school paper has an obituary section, the entire psychotic lunch lady closer and Buffy's look of abject disgust at her, and the killer line that is: "If a fashion magazine told her to, she'd wear cats strapped to her feet". The script is peppered with works of revelatory genius, Jane Espenson cementing her position as the finest non-Joss comedy writer on this show. A+

Credits
Guest stars Kristine Sutherland (Joyce Summers); Alexis Denisof (Wesley Wyndam-Pryce); Ethan Erickson (Percy West); Danny Strong (Jonathan Levinson)
Writer Jane Espenson Director Regis B. Kimble