The final episode of Euphoria delivered a host of surprises on screen, and a large audience watched it happen.
The HBO drama’s third season finale, which also doubled as a series ender, brought in 8.7 million cross-platform viewers in the United States over its first three days. That’s a slight improvement on the season premiere, which drew 8.5 million viewers in its first three days, but it wasn’t the most watched episode of the season. That title belongs to the third episode, which had 8.9 million viewers over three days.
The final season has drawn 25 million worldwide viewers to date, which HBO says is up 17 percent from 21.5 million for season two. HBO measures viewing on a series for 90 days after its premiere date, so that number will continue to grow for about six more weeks. In the U.S., season two averaged better than 16 million viewers by its finale date. It’s worth noting that HBO Max has grown considerably, both domestically and internationally, in the four years between seasons.
The final episodes of the show featured the deaths of several major characters. Euphoria has always been at some level a show about addiction, and creator and showrunner Sam Levinson said he wanted to reflect the all-too-real consequences that it can bring upon people.
“Once [Angus Cloud] passed away, I had to reconceive the script and I thought, you can’t tell a story about addiction today without the very real consequences,” Levinson said on the New York Times‘ Popcast after the finale. “Most people don’t get a second chance. Fentanyl can just take you out in an instant. It wasn’t like when I was growing up; you could literally take pills off the street and you might have a bad trip or something, but you’d be fine. This is something that hits close to home for a lot of people in this country. So it felt like the responsible thing to do.”
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