Girls final season premiere ratings: Up yet bad

Ratings wise, the return of AMC’s The Walking Dead and HBO’s Girls had the exact opposite outcomes on Sunday night.

The zombie drama’s ratings continue to impress — while slipping from its peak. Sunday’s midseason return delivered 12 million viewers and a 5.7 rating among adults 18-49, down 12 percent from last year.

This continues a trend with the hit show that suggests ratings crested in seasons 5 and 6 and have since ebbed slightly downward (while nonetheless delivering huge numbers that every other drama on TV would happily kill for).

Interestingly, the final season return of Girls had the exact opposite scenario: The sixth season debut was actually up from last year … but basically still extremely poor overall.

The debut was only seen by 519,000 viewers, which climbed a Nielsen statistical blink from last year’s premiere of 489,000. The show also had a mere 0.2 rating among adults 18-49. Girls is basically the quintessential media bubble show — hugely loud in pop culture chatter compared to its actual viewership. (Basically, the anti-NCIS).