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.

Filed Under: Aaron Paul, AMC, Breaking Bad, Danny Brown, David Bowie, Girls, Homeland, James Franco, Katy Perry, Lena Dunham, Loose Ends, Miley Cyrus, SNL