Afternoon Links: Breaking Bad Nearly Doubles Its Biggest Audience for the Finale
Breaking Bad sledgehammered its own viewership records over and over during its final eight-episode run, and Sunday night’s disappointingly cat-free finale — very solid in other aspects, though! — was no exception. After last week’s all-time high of 6.6 million viewers, “Felina” drew 10.3 million slobbering fans, 6.7 million of them coming from the Get That Cheddar demographic occasionally referred to as the 18-49 set. Only The Walking Dead has beaten those numbers for AMC’s original programming. There were also 1.24 million tweets, so that’s good, even if the #goodbyebreakingbad hashtag was gross and weird. BrBa‘s premiere, back on January 20, 2008, pulled a scant 1.41 million viewers, and, per THR, “only cracked the 2 million mark on one occasion during the first four seasons.” Heisenwalt’s empire grew quite impressive indeed — even if, as this groundbreaking clip suggests, everything almost turned out a lot differently and more Quantum Leap–y.
- Homeland broke its ratings record, too, coaxing 1.9 million viewers over to Showtime for the Season 3 premiere — which, yes, aired against BrBa. (Really gonna miss typing BrBa. I say it aloud every time. Love it.)
- You’ve listened to “Roar” enough. (Well, you haven’t, but … just go with it.) Now try “Walking on Air,” also off Katy Perry’s upcoming LP Prism.
- This may bode better for Dumb and Dumber To than any prior news: The “pretty bird” kid is back, a couple decades older just like everyone else.
- Lena Dunham and Mindy Kaling hit some couches together, watched SNL spoof Girls.
- This is an EP that’s all about remixes of Volcano Choir’s “Comrade,” which is a lovely song on a luscious album.
- Could you just spend two seconds NOT appearing in a new trailer for a new movie you’re starring in, James Franco?
- Miley was reading Junot Díaz’s Pulitzer-winning intercontinental family twerk-saga The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao over the weekend.
- David Bowie’s The Next Day already has a three-disc reissue coming, with five new songs and some James Murphy action.
- Winningly insano rapper Danny Brown’s by-some-accounts spectacular Old is streaming early on Spotify.
- Back to BrBa — always back to BrBa, at least today: Slate‘s goofing, but the entirety of Aaron Paul’s dialogue in the finale really could’ve fit on one page.
Filed Under: Aaron Paul, AMC, Breaking Bad, Danny Brown, David Bowie, Girls, Homeland, James Franco, Katy Perry, Lena Dunham, Loose Ends, Miley Cyrus, SNL
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