Mare Of Easttown finale is HBO Max's most-watched episode since launch, according to HBO Max
Like Netflix, HBO Max is in the habit of self-reporting its streaming data, which is about as reliable as trusting a self-evaluation from Chad in marketing. While we’d audibly raise an eyebrow at press releases in which streaming platforms proclaim that every new, much-tweeted-about show is the “most passively watched by women folding laundry in the 25-40 demographic,” HBO Max’s latest viewership report actually sounds very correct. Per Uproxx, the series finale of Mare Of Easttown is the platform’s most-watched episode since last year’s launch—a claim confirmed by HBO Max itself:
Mare Of Easttown’s finale raked in 4 million viewers over the weekend, with almost 3 million viewers tuning in to watch the episode Sunday night across all HBO platforms. Kate Winslet and director Craig Zobel’s riveting detective drama is the latest addition to what appears to be a slowly growing stable of mystery thrillers about deeply flawed women, each with a signature hairstyle that, when read like tea leaves, reveals their hidden traumas. Following Nicole Kidman’s poodle-doodle-’do in The Undoing (someone needed to undo the kinks on that wig) and Kaley Cuoco’s brazen middle-part messy bun in The Flight Attendant (a symbol that perhaps Gen Z and millennials will achieve peace in our lifetime), Winslet and her extremely relatable, oft-unwashed low ponytail quickly proved the strongest of the bunch—which admittedly had a lot more to do with a compelling narrative, great performances, and Zobel’s wrangling of a convoluted narrative fraught with twists into a coherent story that emphasized character over content. Still, there’s something to this whole hair thing.
Even before HBO made those viewership numbers public, Mare Of Easttown had obviously become a big deal in the culture, as evidenced in large part by a particularly well-executed SNL satire rife with those rich Delco accents. All of which is to say that absolutely no one is surprised at talk of a potential second season, and while we should know better after what Meryl Streep did with her teeth for Big Little Lies, there is not a scenario in which we would turn down more Mare Of Easttown. Not even if they wash her hair.