‘The Last Of Us’ draws massive audience in penultimate episode

HBO”The last of us” is one of the hottest shows on television right now, and the numbers keep going up. HBO and parent company Warner Bros. Discovery announced this week that the series’ latest episode, Episode 8 of the hit series, drew its biggest audience ever with 8.1 million viewers across HBO Max and linear television. The increase in ratings represents a 74% increase over the series’ debut, which drew the second-largest audience for a premiere episode on HBO in more than 10 years.

‘The Last Of Us’ draws massive audience ahead of season finale

Within HBO, the 8.1 million viewership is based on Nielsen and third-party data. Overall, it was the top show on HBO Max for the eighth week in a row. All episodes ranked among the top 10 individual items of the week. The first five episodes average 30 million viewers across all platforms.

Episode 8 of the hit series, “When We Are In Need,” is the penultimate episode before the first season finale. As reported by The Blast, HBO quickly renewed the show for a second season, and the announcement came before the third episode even aired.

The hit series is based on the iconic video game franchise created by developer Naughty Dog. Starring Bella Ramsey (“Game of Thrones”) and Pedro Pascal (“Game of Thrones,” “The Mandalorian,” “Wonder Woman 1984”) as Ellie Williams and Joel Miller. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Joel tries to smuggle Ellie through a deadly quarantine zone, immune to a deadly infection that has brought down civilization.

The television adaptation is being produced by Craig Mazin (“Chernobyl”) and Neil Druckmann, one of the original creators of the video game franchise and co-chairman of Naughty Dog. Ahead of this weekend’s season finale, Mazin and Druckmann sit down with the co-creator of “The Last Of Us Podcast,” the official companion podcast series to the hit show, to dive deep into each episode scene-by-scene. HBO also revealed that the companion podcast remained a top 5 show on Apple and Spotify TV & Film in the US.

Additionally, HBO has created a spotlight page for the series on HBO Max, which provides additional behind-the-scenes content and access to the accompanying podcast. There’s also an interactive flashlight to help fans find their next HBO series. The spotlight page features a curated selection of movies and shows from 2003, the year the show’s fictional lifestyle epidemic broke out.

The star of the series, Pascal, seems to be riding a huge momentum right now. Along with “The Last of Us,” his other massive genre series, “The Mandalorian,” returned for its third season on Disney+ last week. The next episode of the hit series debuts on Wednesday, March 8, as the clock strikes midnight on the West Coast.

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The Season 1 finale of “The Last of Us” debuts Sunday, March 12 on HBO. The first eight episodes can be streamed on HBO Max. Additionally, HBO is now streaming the first episode of the series for free on HBOMax.com.