Yesterday's episode of Castle was the second episode of this season's 2-parter. A lot of great stuff happened, and there was some good news in the ratings and audience department as well
'Hunt' earned a 2.3 adults 18-49 rating, and 10.77 million viewers. This rating was identical to last week's 'Target.' Target set the season ratings high, and Hunt equaled it. This bucks the trend that was set by the three previous 2-parters, which have always seen a ratings increase from the first to the second episode. Hunt bucked that trend, equaling the ratings of the first episode, Target
Last week, Target drew in 9.85 million viewers, the highest number of viewers since episode 8 this season. Hunt, however, earned 10.77 million viewers, not far off 1 million viewers more than Target, and also the third most viewed episode this season, behind episodes 4 and 5.
Overall, this season's 2 parter performed much better than last seasons's 2-parter. Last season, the Pandora and Linchpin duo earned a 2.0 rating and 8.86 million viewers, and a 2.1 rating and 9.73 million viewers respectively. With Target and Hunt each earning 2.3 ratings, and 9.85 and 10.77 million viewers respectively, this season's 2-parter was much more popular with the Castle fandom than last season's 2-parter
The Round 2 poll for readers' guesses at the ratings for Hunt yielded a pretty broad range of results. Given Castle's 100% record at increasing the ratings from the first 2-parter episode to the second, it's not much of a surprise to see that a combined 50% of voters guessed a 2.4 or 2.5 rating for Hunt. Just over 10% of people guessed that Hunt would equal Target's 2.3 rating. Interestingly, just over 22% of people thought Hunt would earn a '2.8 or above' rating. Sorry to drop a bombshell, but I think you'd be more likely to be struck by lightning than Castle seeing such as massive ratings boost - unless you're ABC's Scandal!! You can see the results of the poll here
A little bit of trivia now, Hunt was Castle creator Andrew Marlowe's thirteenth episode. Over the course of the series, the episodes Marlowe has written or co-written have averaged a 2.48 rating, and 10.44 million viewers. There are other writers who have better ratings and audience averages though, you can check out this page on my website for more information on individual Castle writers and the performance of their episodes
Thanks for reading! I hope everyone survives the three week break without deteriorating too much!
Jimmy
