'Euphoria' is now HBO's second most watched show (you can probably guess the first)

It's also the most tweeted TV show of the decade.
By Rachel Thompson  on 
Rue (Zendaya) sits on her bed and stares into the middle distance with a sad expression.

Euphoria is everywhere right now. The memes are all over our Twitter feeds, our TikTok FYPs, and our Instagram Stories. Its ubiquity is likely owing to the phenomenal viewing figures: The show is now HBO's second most-viewed series behind Game of Thrones.

According to Variety, the Euphoria Season 2 finale pulled in a whopping 16.3 million viewers — the second highest viewing figures of an HBO series over the past 18 years after Game of Thrones, which saw 19.4 million tune in on the night of its Season 8 finale back in 2019.

Directed and executive produced by Sam Levinson, the Zendaya-led drama follows the lives of high school students as they deal with love, loss, addiction, and trauma. As Mashable's Alison Foreman writes in her review of Season 2, Euphoria is a "dark portrait of modern adolescence" which takes a "no-holds-barred approach to drugs, sex, and violence."

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The Emmy-award winning drama stars Zendaya as 17-year-old Rue, Hunter Schafer as Jules Vaughn, Sydney Sweeney as Cassie, Alexa Demie as Maddy Perez, Barbie Ferreira as Kat Hernandez, and Maude Apatow as Lexi Howard. Angus Cloud plays Fezco, Jacob Elordi plays Nate Jacobs, Algee Smith plays Christopher McKay, and Eric Dane plays Cal Jacobs.

Currently, the viewership figures of the Season 2 premiere is nearing 19 million in the U.S.

Just when you thought it couldn't possibly get much better, Euphoria has also smashed a Twitter record. It is the most tweeted TV show of the decade, per Twitter.

It will likely come as no surprise to learn that HBO has renewed the show for a third season.

Topics HBO

An image of journalist and author Rachel Thompson on a pink backdrop. She has long brown hair and is wearing a light pink dress.
Rachel Thompson
Features Editor

Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World will be published by Penguin Random House on Jan. 30, 2025. It is available for pre-order now.

Her first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021. Stylist magazine called Rough "2021's most important book about sex".

Based in the UK, Rachel has been writing about sex, dating, relationships, and digital culture for over a decade.


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