True Detective finished its first season on Sunday night with record ratings for the first season of an HBO series.
For the eighth and final episode, True Detective averaged 3.5 million viewers. The freshman's season finale was up 50 percent over the season premiere, which had 2.3 million viewers, reports Deadline.
The Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson lead drama averaged about 4.9 million viewers between three different viewings for the night.
For the season, the show averaged about 11 million viewers, which is the highest a first season has for HBO in over a decade. Six Feet Under was the last show to have a first season average numbers like that back in 2001 with 11.4 million.
Interest in the finale was so high that HBO's online streaming service HBO Go crashed. The premium pay network quickly worked to restore service so people could resume watching.
The Nic Pizzolatto created show will feature a whole new cast and storyline for season two. Though it was previously planned out to have the cast only be around for one season, McConaughey still had to say that he would not be returning.
HBO's other Sunday night shows also had decent nights with Lena Dunham's Girls averaging 916,000 viewers, while Looking set a new series high with 519,000 viewers.
image courtesy of Amazon