Spoiler warning for Episode 8.05 of Game of Thrones!
With just an episode left before the series grand finale, Game of Thrones keeps on breaking viewership records. According to a report by The Wrap, the penultimate episode of HBO’s fantasy drama draw 18.4 million viewers, including linear viewing on HBO and streaming on HBO Go and HBO Now. (The show set the previous record of 17.8 million viewers with “The Long Night,” episode 3 of the eighth season.) As a result, “The Bells” is officially the most-watched episode of all HBO TV shows ever.
Moreover, with 12.48 million viewers on the linear channel watching Daenerys incinerating thousands of innocent lives in King’s Landing, the episode broke the previous record of 12.07 million held by the season 7 finale.
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Despite posting the highest ratings in series history, GoT‘s latest episode has divided opinion among fans and critics over Daenerys’ actions. Additionally, “The Bells” has received the series’ lowest ever score on the Rotten Tomatoes review aggregator website, attaining just a 53 percent rating. The anticipation for the series’ grand finale is higher than ever, nevertheless. Aside from finding out who will eventually sit on the Iron Throne, we’ll be interested to see if the last episode will be able to draw even higher numbers than these. Backlash aside, most fans will probably still want to see how everything ends.
Game of Thrones’ final episode airs Sunday, May 19. Do you think that the series finale will break the current Game of Thrones viewership record? Let us know in the comments section below.
