HBO's cable sibling sees its most-watched original episode to date, with 733,000 tuning in to the March 14 finale.

After receiving an early renewal in January, the Cinemax original drama Banshee's ratings have only gone up.

Banshee hit a first-run (and network) record on Friday with its sophomore finale, when 733,000 viewers tuned in to the 10 p.m. telecast, besting the previous high by 142,000. Those numbers made it the most-watched original episode of any Cinemax series to date.

The show went on to gross 968,000 viewers with an encore -- also a high. Banshee's season-to-date gross viewership (with DVR, on-demand and HBO Go) is now at 2.7 million viewers.

Cinemax committed to a third season of the Jonathan Tropper and David Schickler-created drama, which also counts Alan Ball, Peter Macdissi and Greg Yaitanes as executive producers, back in January.