Buffy goes slowly mad with a case of telepathy, while the Scooby Gang must solve the mystery of who might kill the students of Sunnydale High.
Angel hunts down the surviving demon and brings its heart in a glass mixed with other ingredients, after Buffy finds the effects of mind-reading to be stressful and distracting.
In her commentary on the DVD, writer Jane Espenson reveals that when she found out that she was going to write this episode she knew that she wanted the student in the tower to be Jonathan.
[1] Espenson also mentions in her commentary that she included the exchange in which Buffy discovers that her mother slept with Giles in "Band Candy" because she was surprised that fans were not sure that they had had sex and she wanted to eliminate any doubts.
[2] Giles walking right into a tree after Buffy told him she knew he slept with her mother was Anthony Head's idea, although he did not expect that Joss Whedon would actually let him do it.
Because it included a scene with a student loading a rifle – apparently for mass murder, but in reality for suicide – the WB substituted a rerun of "Bad Girls".
[5][6] Vox ranks it at #36 on their "Every Episode Ranked From Worst to Best" list, praising the "rather heartbreaking conversation between her and Jonathan about the fundamental loneliness and pain of human existence... despite its heavy subject matter and rather clumsy misdirection around the true nature of the threat, for most of its runtime 'Earshot' remains on the lighter side of things.
"[7] Rolling Stone similarly ranks it at #44 and writes of the face-off between Buffy and Jonathan, "It's incredibly powerful and comes out of nowhere, hitting you like a freight train.
"[8] Billie Doux, giving the episode 4 out of 4 stakes, writes, "We had the biting wit and great lines, and yet they were addressing truly serious issues here.
Club criticized the portrayal of telepathy in the episode, and generally on TV and film, but praised the humorous and poignant insights it gave into what Buffy's friends were thinking.
[10] A review for the BBC praised the concept of Buffy the mind reader, but was less impressed by the plot's more routine group investigation.