“The White Lotus” saw its highest viewership ever with the airing of Season 3’s sixth episode — with a little help from the most shocking sex scene yet in a series full of shocking sex scenes.
Titled “Denials,” the episode hit 4.2 million viewers on Sunday. That total comes from a combination of Nielsen’s measurement of viewers who tuned in via HBO’s linear channel as well as Warner Bros. Discovery’s own data regarding streams on Max.
The episode increased on the previous series high by 2.4%, with the Season 2 finale having set a record of 4.1 million viewers in December 2022. The final two episodes, which air on March 30 and April 6, may rank even higher if this season manages to follow last season’s viewership trends: A jaw-dropping sex scene led Episode 5 of Season 2 to a then-series high of 2.3 million viewers, which rose to 2.8 million the next episode before the record-setting finale.
Season 3 of “The White Lotus” opened with 2.4 million viewers before jumping to 3.4 million with Episode 2 and tallying 3.4 million again with Episode 4 — though WBD didn’t share data regarding Episodes 3 or 5. Still, the company now says that each week since Season 3 debuted has marked an all-time viewership high for the series as a whole. In other words, even though Sunday’s episode was the first to outrank the Season 2 finale in terms of same-day viewers, the amount of time people have spent streaming all episodes of “The White Lotus” is continuing to increase. WBD also says that Season 3 is currently pacing more than 5 million viewers ahead of what Season 2 had achieved in the same amount of time, with Season 2 eventually reaching a 90-day average of 15.5 million viewers.
Read Variety‘s interview with Season 3 star Sam Nivola for more details on the “sort of fucked up” sex scene — spoilers ahead.
