The Last of Us season 2 finale suffered a 55 percent drop in viewers from season 1, but HBO says it's expected to grow

The final episode of The Last of Us season 2 saw a considerable drop in viewership on Sunday night compared to the season 1 finale.

The episode aired to 3.7 million viewers across all platforms, which is down 55% from the numbers achieved by its predecessor in March 2023 – around 8.2 million viewers (via TheWrap).

The episode's viewership is expected to grow in the upcoming days, however. According to HBO, a lot of viewers haven't been able to watch the finale due to holiday weekend plans, and they will be catching up soon. HBO also reminded fans that the franchise, which is based in Naughty Dog's popular games, has seen 90 million viewers since season 1 ended, with Season 2 gathering nearly 37 million global viewers per episode.

That means that, despite the viewership drop, the show's future is more than secured, with The Last of Us season 3 already on the way. We couldn't be happier about that, considering what we saw in the latest episode – you can check our The Last of Us season 2 ending explained for all the spoiler-y details.

The show's co-creator and writer Craig Mazin talked about that shocking ending in a recent interview, and how the team thought it was important to take risks while adapting such a beloved video game. "We have to take risks as a television show, and HBO [has] to back us taking risks. But then again, we just did kill Pedro Pascal. Like, they understand that this show is going to be a different show every season, which is a sort of a tricky thing to do when you're a hit show.

"You keep asking people like, 'I know you love this, we're taking it away and giving you this now,' and then, 'Oh, well, you know what? We actually really like this. Oh, that's nice.' Now we're giving you this, because that's how the story works, right?"

The Last of Us season 2 is streaming now on HBO in the US, and on Sky and NOW in the UK. For more, read our The Last of Us season 2 cliffhanger explained, and check out our lists of the best HBO Max shows and the best HBO Max movies to stream right now.