‘Big Little Lies’ Season 2 Premiere Ratings Easily Top Season 1

By Joe Otterson

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – “Big Little Lies” kicked off its second season with a nice ratings boost and that is not a lie of any size.

The Season 2 premiere of the HBO series nabbed 2.5 million viewers combined in both linear airings and on streaming options GO and HBO NOW. That is approximately a 34% increase over the first season premiere, which pulled in a combined 1.8 million viewers. The 9 p.m. linear premiere averaged 1.4 million viewers, up approximately 25% from the 1.1 million viewers the Season 1 linear premiere drew. Per HBO, Season 1 went on to average 8.5 million multi-platform viewers per episode.

“” Season 2, buoyed by the addition of Oscar winner Meryl Streep, has received nearly universal praise from critics, with the season holding a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

In her review for Variety, Caroline Framke wrote, “Even when Season 2 is messy — and it is, more often than not — the mess at least feels like the point. It would have been easy to leave the story on that beach at golden hour with the triumph of sticking the ending. It’s far harder to imagine what would actually happen the next day, and the next, and the next.”

Season 1 of the series ultimately took home eight Emmy Awards in 2017, competing in the limited series category. It won the award for best limited series along with acting wins for stars Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, and Alexander Skarsgård.