‘The Last Of Us’ Lands HBO’s Biggest Episode 1 To 2 Viewership Jump Ever

In case you needed any more evidence that HBO’s The Last of Us is the storied channel’s latest breakout megahit, here’s a fun new bit of data to join its rave reviews and high premiere numbers.

WB Discovery is now reporting that The Last of Us had the largest episode 1 to episode 2 viewership gain in HBO history. It was up 22% to 5.7 million viewers Sunday night.

In part, it’s easy to see why this happened. The Last of Us now has 18 million people that have watched its premiere, which is 4x more than its premiere night alone. So what clearly happened is that some percent of those who watched over the following week were hooked enough to want to tune in when the episode aired live the following Sunday rather than waiting.

But it’s a larger percentage than ever before. The most common thing you see from shows is a big premiere, followed by a few weeks of drop-off. A good show will build up that audience and usually surpass the premiere for a big finale. A great show has such positive word of mouth (“you must watch this”) that the numbers go up week to week. That’s where The Last of Us landed, and it went up more than…any other show.

Naturally, the first thing I thought of was Game of Thrones, to see how it compared. Guess what? Game of Thrones live viewership went down in week 2, from 2.22 million to 2.20 million. However, by the end of the season, everyone was hooked, and the finale had 3.04 million viewers. Then, of course, it became a global sensation, and the show ended with 13.61 million viewers for the series finale.

House of the Dragon is a really curious case. Not only did viewership go up between episodes 1 and 2, 2.17 million to 2.26 million, the second episode was actually the peak of the show’s first season. The finale drew 1.85 million viewers. Of course, all of this is heavily skewed by how many people are watching on HBO Max and in the days and week that follow each episode airing.

But the bottom line is…The Last of Us is a blockbuster for HBO. A second season is guaranteed at this point, and I would expect that announcement any minute now. While season 1 is meant to cover the entire first game, season 2 will cover only part of the second game, given its size. And I do wonder how audiences will handle one…particular development that opens the second game, but more on that later.

For now, HBO and everyone involved in making The Last of Us should be basking in its success. And supposedly its best episode is airing this upcoming Sunday, according to reviewers who have seen them all…

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.