'Marvel's Inhumans' Season Finale Ratings Can't Redeem MCU's Biggest Stumble

Marvel's Inhumans wrapped season one (and possibly the entire series) with a finale that delivered some mixed ratings numbers.

As TV By The Numbers reports, The Inhumans finale pulled in 1.9 million viewers overall, and a .5 in the coveted adults 18-49 demographic. As Deadline notes, the show went out as a very mixed bag: Inhumans retained 100% of the lead-in from Once Upon A Time in its target demo (18 - 49) and 81% of its lead-in audience overall, which is rare example of holding power; however, the show has also dragged down ABC's 20/20 to some of its lowest ratings in history. In fact, thanks to stumbles of Inhumans, NBC's Dateline has doubled 20/20's ratings in this fall season.

In the end, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Inhumans is anything but a complete failure - one of the worst that the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise has ever seen. While Marvel has had to endure some critical and/or ratings stumbles with TV projects (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter), we've never seen a case like Inhumans, where there was a major IMAX theatrical release that fell flat, before a disappointing TV run that actually managed to drag other popular shows down with it! Worse yet: Inhumans is the second major Marvel TV failure that can be attributed to showrunner Scott Buck, who also oversaw Iron Fist, which was easily the worst-received installment of Marvel's Netflix Defenders franchise.

...And this leads us to an interesting new junction. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is (for better a worse) a franchise where decisions on characters, franchise, and actors are written in ink. Despite the completely abysmal failure of Inhumans, the characters, actors, and storyline are now a part of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. That means any future storylines that are relevant to the Inhuman Royal Family will require this would-be-forgotten entry of the franchise must be revisited. It'll be interesting to see how the fans respond.

Inhumans season 1 is now available for streaming on Hulu and On Demand services. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 1 premieres on Friday, Decemeber 1st and ABC.

NEXT: Kevin Feige Responds to Inhumans Backlash