There should be champagne popping at HBO today. The initial viewing figures for the season three finale of “The White Lotus” have dropped, and they are somewhat staggering. HBO reports that 6.2 million viewers watched the episode last night across both HBO broadcast and MAX streaming in the United States alone. That’s a 30% jump over the record viewership for the series last week.
READ MORE: “The White Lotus” Season 3 Finale: Once again, money wins
Viewership for Mike White’s critically acclaimed anthology series continues to grow as this season’s finale was up 51% over the season two finale, which aired on December 11, 2022. Moreover, HBO states that the first episode of season three is nearing 20 million viewers, with each episode this season averaging approximately 16 million viewers (and growing). Independent research firm Nielsen has reported that each episode this season has earned over 800 million hours of viewing each week in the U.S. Clearly, a two-year hiatus did not diminish the public’s hunger for murder and moral ambiguity at the fictional White Lotus resorts.
Comparatively, “The Last of Us” season one finale earned 8.2 million for its final episode on both HBO and MAX, a little over a year ago. The “Succession” series finale, which dropped on May 28, 2023, landed 2.9 million viewers on both platforms.
“The White Lotus” season three has earned kudos from critics with a 77 grade on Metacritic and an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. That praise is down slightly from the first two seasons, but the program is expected to earn a massive number of Emmy nominations later this summer.
Season four of “The White Lotus” has already been greenlit, but neither HBO nor White has revealed where it will occur.