AMC’s ‘The Killing’: Did cliffhanger anger lead to lower ratings?

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Guess those fans of ‘The Killing’ weren’t kidding when they said they were angry.

AMC’s moody crime drama returned for its second season Sunday with a two-hour premiere that averaged 1.8 million total viewers, plunging one-third compared with last year’s premiere, according to Nielsen.

The key to the drop-off may be last year’s season finale cliffhanger, which outraged fans by not wrapping up the mystery surrounding teenager Rosie Larsen’s death. Actually, ‘outraged’ might be too gentle a word, considering that an angry online mob seemed ready to chase down executive producer Veena Sud with pitchforks and torches.

AMC pointed out that the Sunday ratings slipped a more modest 16% compared with last year’s overall season average. But that’s cold comfort to network executives given that prior to the Season 1 finale, ‘The Killing’ was one of TV’s best-reviewed shows and considered the latest triumph from the network that gave us ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘The Walking Dead.’

AMC ran the premiere again at 11 p.m., for a nightly cumulative of 2.5 million viewers.

If you watched, what did you think of ‘The Killing’ premiere? And if you didn’t, was it because you felt betrayed by the Season 1 closer?

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— Scott Collins (twitter.com/scottcollinsLAT)