Euphoria is HBO’s most watched show behind Game of Thrones

You can count me as one of those people who haven’t gotten around to watching Euphoria yet, but it would appear that I’m in the minority. Just a day after it was revealed that Euphoria is the most Tweeted about show of the decade, HBO has announced that the series is their most watched show since 2004 behind only Game of Thrones.

Zendaya leads the ensemble cast of Euphoria as Rue, a 17-year-old who must find hope while balancing the pressures of love, loss, and addiction in the town of East Highland. The finale of the second season of Euphoria aired on Sunday and drew 6.6 million viewers, which brings the average for the second season to 16.3 million viewers, the best of any HBO series other than Game of Thrones for almost twenty years. Given it’s popularity, it’s probably no surprise that the season finale crashed HBO Max to crash, where is has been the top title in the U.S. for the seventh week in the row. Maybe I should check this series out finally.

Euphoria is created, written, directed and executive produced by Sam Levinson, who took inspiration from his own life as inspiration for the characters. “I just feel like there is such a disconnect between what young people are going through and what everyone else thinks they’re going through,” Levinson told THR in 2019. “We didn’t want to pull any punches. We didn’t want to make it feel like we were holding anything back or that we are hiding anything.” The series has certainly received plenty of praise since its premiere, with Zendaya winning an Emmy Award for Best Actress, but it has also fallen under fire for its depiction of drug use and sexual content, which some believe to be excessive. No matter what your thoughts on the series are, we’ve still got more Euphoria in our future as the series has already been renewed for the third season.

Are you surprised Euphoria is getting the kind of viewers to nearly match Game of Thrones?