{"id":436537,"date":"2026-01-29T08:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/436537\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T08:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:50:11","slug":"wild-cards-season-3-premiere-draws-series-largest-audience-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/436537\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Wild Cards&#8217; Season 3 Premiere Draws Series&#8217; Largest Audience Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/the-cw\/\" id=\"auto-tag_the-cw\" data-tag=\"the-cw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The CW<\/a> might just have a winning hand with the third season of <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/wild-cards\/\" id=\"auto-tag_wild-cards\" data-tag=\"wild-cards\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wild Cards<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe Season 3 premiere opened to 710,000 live + same-day viewers on Monday night, according to Nielsen Panel + Big Data, marking the series\u2019 largest overnight audience ever.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tWhile that number may seem somewhat modest at first glance, it\u2019s up 24% compared to last year\u2019s Season 2 debut and 62% versus the Season 2 finale. It suggests perhaps there is some building momentum for the series, which CW President of Entertainment Brad Schwartz said <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2024\/02\/the-cw-eyes-wild-cards-renewal-season-2-1235827824\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">was averaging about half a million in live overnights<\/a> starting with its first season. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tAt the time, Schwartz suggested that episodes posting around 500,000 in overnights were likely to go to around 1M over the first seven days \u2014 a strong performance for the network.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tWild Cards\u00a0is a crime-solving procedural with a comedic twist that follows the unlikely duo of a gruff, sardonic cop and a spirited, clever con woman. Ellis (Giacomo Gianniotti) plays a demoted detective who has spent the last year on the maritime unit, while Max (Vanessa Morgan)\u00a0has been living a transient life elaborately scamming everyone she meets. But when Max gets arrested and ends up helping Ellis solve a local crime, the two are offered the opportunity to redeem themselves, with Ellis going back to detective and Max staying out of jail. The catch? They have to work together, with each using their unique skills to solve crimes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe third season picks up one month after the season two finale with Max now working as an official police consultant. Her world is immediately upended by two arrivals: First, Ellis returns to the force, cleared of all charges and ready to be her partner again. Second, the woman at Max\u2019s door is revealed to be her long-lost mother, Vivienne (Tamara Taylor) \u2013 who Max believed was dead. Vivienne\u2019s return ignites events in Season 3 and further upends Max\u2019s already complicated relationship with Ellis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tJason Priestley, Terry Chen, Michael Xavier, Amy Goodmurphy, Fletcher Donovan, Giacomo Baessato and Karin Konoval also star. Martin Sheen also appeared in Season 2.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tNew episodes air Monday at 8 p.m. ET\/PT on The CW. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The CW might just have a winning hand with the third season of Wild Cards. The Season 3&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,2780,92,9611,206344],"class_list":{"0":"post-436537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-the-cw","10":"tag-tv","11":"tag-tv-ratings","12":"tag-wild-cards"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}