Even a big event like the Super Bowl can’t dim Euphoria‘s shine.
According to Variety, the HBO drama starring Zendaya reached 5.1 million viewers, a new series high. This is despite airing on the same night as the Super Bowl, which is usually sucks ratings from other competing programming. The 5.1 million viewership was a 20 percent increase from the prior week and was 45 percent up from the season average. Variety also wrote how their prior reporting found that the season’s viewership was already nearly 100 percent higher than its first season.
HBO released a statement about Euphoria‘s ratings, writing in part, “Euphoria ranked as the No. 1 title on HBO Max in the U.S. for the fifth week in a row and the top series globally (including HBO Max viewership in LatAm and Europe.) Euphoria was the No. 1 most social and No. 1 most talked about broadcast when excluding the Super Bowl.”
The fact that Euphoria was still able to make HBO records is astounding, especially when you consider that the Super Bowl had over 112 million viewers. But it goes to show that football isn’t the only thing that keeps Americans glued to the TV; high school dysfunction is also a big draw as well.
Zendaya talked to Shadow and Act recently about what her tortured character Rue is going through this season, particularly Rue’s recent drug-fueled hallucination of being in church with a pastor (played by Euphoria music head Labrinth) and hugging her father.
“It’s interesting because we always had it written, but it wasn’t fully fleshed out and we didn’t have a peculiar song for it,” she said regarding the church hallucination scene. “I think we were originally going to sing a song that already existed. It’s funny because we were actually shooting that kind of later on in the season for episode four, and in between takes, Sam [Levinson, Euphoria‘s creator] or myself would go over to where Lab was, and we’d just go in there and just start working, coming up with stuff and writing together. And I love writing with Lab. I’ve been able to do it before and especially in the context of Euphoria. And just kind of understanding me where Rue is going and where she’s at.”
“It’s the idea of Rue being tired of being who she is and you can look at it from like a more melancholy and kind of deep sadness, but there’s also this idea of [an] ‘I don’t want to be who I am anymore’ feeling and this idea of rebirthing and becoming someone else or stepping into a new phase of your life, which I really have hope for Rue in that sense,” she added.
