The ninth and final episode of The Last of Us series was broadcast on the night of Sunday March 12 to Monday March 13, 2023. The producers were undoubtedly more anxious than normal since at the same time, the 95th Oscars ceremony was broadcast on another channel. For some unknown reason, HBO decided to maintain the broadcast while for the Super Bowl, we remember that episode 5 had been advanced by two days to avoid confrontation. Despite this tough competition, episode 9 of The Last of Us was followed by 8.2 million American viewers, which corresponds to 100,000 more compared to episode 8 which nevertheless held the record for the series. Proof that the success is total and that the interest to progress over the 9 episodes. It’s simple, it’s a 74.6% increase for the “Season Finale” episode, knowing that these are only figures recorded solely on the HBO Max service in the United States at time T of the diffusion. Suffice to say that by combining the spectators in “Replay” and those in other countries, the figures are even higher.
A success that allows The Last of Us to do better than Game of Thrones and even House of the Dragon, since by adding the figures, HBO announces that the average audience for the first 6 episodes of The Last of Us amounts to approximately 30.4 million viewers across all platforms, knowing that episode 1 was seen by nearly 40 million viewers. For comparison, House of the Dragon had averaged 29 million viewers across all platforms. On the other hand, Game of Thrones, keeps the record with more than 44 million viewers in 2019. The success for The Last of Us is therefore total and the sequel will obviously happen on Blu-ray and DVD, without forgetting that Seasons 2 and 3 are gearing up to shoot this year according to Pedro Pascal, and will follow the events of The Last of Us Part 2 video game.
Viewership for each episode of The Last of Us:
Episode 1: 4.7 million
Episode 2: 5.7 million
Episode 3: 6.4 million
Episode 4: 7.5 million
Episode 5: 11.6 million (cdata over 3 days of broadcast)
Episode 6: 7.8 million
Episode 7: 7.7 million
Episode 8: 8.1 million
Episode 9: 8.2 million (against the Oscars)