HBO’s highly popular video game to small screen series adaptation ‘The Last of Us’ aired its final episode in India on the Disney+ Hotstar OTT platform yesterday and on HBO Max in the US. The HBO series has garnered widespread critical admiration across the globe and after its recent conclusion, the same is aptly reflected in the show’s viewership numbers.
Even when the world was engrossed in watching the Oscar 2023 Awards ceremony, ‘The Last of Us’ first season’s ninth and final episode still managed to attract a whopping number of 8.2 million viewers across all HBO platforms which was the highest amongst all nine episodes. The first eight episodes of ‘The Last Of Us’ series ranked in 4.7, 5.7, 6.4, 7.5, 11.6 (Friday-Sunday), 7.8, 7.7, and 8.1 million viewers.
Another interesting fact is that the first six episodes of ‘The Last of Us’ series attracted an average of 30.4 million viewers since its premiere on 15th January. The first episode itself has raked in almost 40 million viewers since its debut. And this viewership figure makes the post-apocalyptic show even bigger than last year’s superhit series ‘House of the Dragon’, which clocked an average of 29 million viewers.
And if we assume that the last three episodes of ‘The Last Of Us’ will bring in similar audience viewership numbers, beating the ‘Game Of Thrones’ prequel looks likely and it’s not a small feat by any standard.
As expected, ‘The Last of Us’ has already been renewed for Season-2. The show currently holds a 96% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Recently, ‘The Last Of Us’ also became the first and only show which was able to crack the coveted list of IMDb’s top 250 TV shows of all time.
HBO’s horror-adventure series ‘The Last of Us’ revolves around two characters Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and is set in the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic world affected by a mass fungal infection. The basic premise is that Joel, a hardened smuggler, is hired to transport a teenager Ellie across the country, while protecting her from omnipresent dangers.