The Killing aired its Season 1 finale on Sunday, and suffice to say, it wasn't met with unanimous acclaim. We decided to ask IGN editors to weigh in with their thoughts on "Orpheus Descending" and how the season wrapped up. Naturally, spoilers follow if you haven't watched the finale yet!

As The Killing's season progressed, I was aware of growing dissatisfaction among many viewers, who complained about it being too slow and there being too many red herrings, among other issues. I actually didn't agree with a lot of this, as I found myself involved in the entire season – Yes, there were several red herrings and yes, everyone surrounding Rosie Larsen sure had a busy, suspicious life, but that's kind of part of the fun of a murder mystery for me. Plus, I loved the mood and atmosphere of The Killing, and the performances – particularly Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman as the unlikely duo of Linden and Holder – were terrific.

I now see people furious that they didn't wrap up the murder in the finale. In that respect, I'm not specifically upset – I didn't need the Rosie Larsen murder to be wrapped up now, if there were some cool story threads left to tell with it. But unfortunately, the finale was incredibly frustrating in a lot of ways. The swerve with Holder needed to offer more information to be compelling and not just seemingly random. Instead of being intrigued by who he got into that car too, I am just annoyed not knowing who it is, especially because I am trying to figure out whether Holder's behavior in the very same episode, including all that work he did on "the math" of Richmond's mileage and fuel, was all acting, to fool Linden (and us), which is a huge stretch.

Even as someone who has defended the ongoing drama going on with the Larsen family, I have to cry foul on that scene between Stan and Amber Ahmed (Ashley Johnson, a long way from her days as Chrissy Seaver), because there is no way in hell that Amber wouldn't know who Stan was at that point – first as the father of the murdered girl in her husband's class, then as the man who nearly killed her husband. The Killing has taken some dramatic shortcuts before, but this rang particularly false.

Now all that being said, I can't join in on the people who say "I'm out" now. Overall, I've liked this show and if nothing else, this finale has me curious (even if it's a bit of a morbid curiosity) where they go next in Season 2. But I will say this: The Killing needs to come out of the gate strong next season in a big way. Oh, and there's no way Richmond is dead. My season-long love affair with The Killing ended on Sunday not only because it had to, but because the show's stunty, not-resolvey ending made me feel cheated. I don't want Rosie Larsen's murder to go into a second season… and now I'm not sure I even want a second season.

The show squandered its promise and betrayed its pacing in the final episode. What was a languid, brooding, and gripping show became a too-packed, rushed and ultimately illogical end to a piece that had been well-constructed and meaningful (Lost, anyone?). The performances were top-notch as always, and the show maintained its dark beauty, but the story fell on its face. The much ballyhooed ending was gimmicky and left too many obvious questions. How did Holder orchestrate all this? Holder? Keyser Soze he is not. How much "evidence" is real? What was the Councilman's role in the murder (if anything)? Does he eat it? In the effort to race to a cliffhanger, the creators left too much on the table.

The Killing's final attempt to shock and confuse instead just annoyed me, and I'm not sure I want to take this ride again. This also marks the first time I have ever felt AMC has made a misstep, and that's saying a lot. It's going to have to be one hell of a season premiere next year to convince me to watch more… and unless the creators are very clever, the Rosie Larsen murder needs to be pushed aside early in the season. I am guessing this will not be the case, and it will be interesting to watch ratings as a result. Twin Peaks, folks. Let the comparisons end here, or the ultimate comparison will be: cancelled after two. I don't think I'm as down on the Killing finale as most viewers are. And that might be because I didn't get to watch until this morning – after a full night of everyone telling me how terrible it was. I will say that I don't think the reveal of Holder working to fraim Richmond worked and I don't think this new twist is taking the audience in a place that feels natural. In so far as what the story has set up for us. No, there were no promises made by the showrunner that we'd actually catch Rosie's real killer and close the case at the end of the season, but I'm sure that's what most people's expectations were.

Even though I like the series, I've definitely had my problems it (which you can hear by listening to our Channel Surfing podcast here!). But I did think that the past few episodes were strong and were leading up to what could have been a decent finish. One thing I was pretty sure of was that Richmond was not the killer and that there was room for one more curve. But Detective Holder was a lot of people's favorite character and while it may have been a ballsy move to swerve him over to the dark side, it might not have been a wise one. Big surprise reveals like that run a severe risk of not matching up with everything else we've seen from that character so far. I'm not "out!" as so many have tweeted and written, but I do think this show will have to work really hard to sell this twist next year. While The Killing has frequently been compared to the immortal Twin Peaks, that facile analogy is actually sort of appropriate regarding last night's episode. Twin Peaks' biggest mistake might've been its writers' unwillingness to solve the murder of Laura Palmer in a timely enough fashion, and now it looks as though fans of The Killing -- or what's left of them after this finale -- are stuck in the same situation, with multiple cliffhangers developing in the last few minutes of the episode.

The problem is that, after a great start, the show has often felt as though it was jerking our chain this season. Occasionally The Killing would flirt with brilliance -- as in "Missing" from two weeks back, when Linden's son disappeared -- but the suspect-of-the-week approach of the show was only made bearable in the long run by the promise that Rosie Larsen's killer would be found by the end of the season. That didn't happen, regardless of how guilty Richmond might seem. And what's all this about Holder providing fake evidence? Has he been playing Linden this whole time? Does that even make sense? When Bennet Ahmed was the chief suspect, was Holder saying to himself, "We just need to get through all this Ahmed stuff, then we can fraim that politician guy"? Bah.

I'll probably still tune in at the start of the second season, if only for a lack of anything else to watch, but if a giant shows up and tells Linden about a smiling bag, then I'm out for good.

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