Last week, the second episode of Game of Thrones season 7 — “Stormborn” — was watched live by 9.27 million people. That would have been the highest-rated episode of the show…if not for the first episode of Game of Thrones season 7 — “Dragonstone” — which was watched live by 10.1 million people. Now, Zap2It has the numbers for “The Queen’s Justice,” this past Sunday’s episode. Do they keep pace?
Yes they do. Zap2It reports that “The Queen’s Justice” was watched live by 9.25 million people, just a hair short of the numbers for “Stormborn.” To put this in context, before season 7, the highest-rated episode of the show was “The Winds of Winter,” the season 6 finale. That episode pulled in 8.89 million live viewers. So every episode of season 7 so far has gotten better ratings than each and every episode of the first six seasons.
It’s a good time to be HBO right about now.
In addition to Game of Thrones, Zap2It has info on how all cable shows performed on Sunday. Second place went to Rick and Morty, which kicked off its third season — it drew 2.85 million live viewers, well short of Game of Thrones but still solid, which is good, because that show is absolutely delightful.
Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss are actually big fans of Rick and Morty, so this feel appropriate.
Next: Game of Thrones showrunners discuss the big death scene from 'The Queen's Justice'
UPDATE: The news keeps getting better. As of the morning of Wednesday, July 2, 2017, Entertainment Weekly reports that, according to HBO, U.S. viewership for the season 7 premiere is about to surpass 30 million people across all of HBO’s domestic platforms. To put that in context, there’s about 300 million people in the U.S., so if you talk to any given stranger about “Dragonstone,” there’s a one in 10 change they’ll know what you’re talking about.
The show is breaking records in overseas markets, too. Click here for more from EW.
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