Yesterday I rewatched the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. premiere and thought of a few more things to say, so I thought I’d post this little follow-up to my recap.  The first thing I realized is that despite my best efforts I need to do a better job of balancing note taking and watching the show, because I missed some things and got some things wrong in my recap.  I guess that’s to be expected a bit, but I think I can do better in the future.  It was my first time writing a true recap, and it was for an information heavy series premiere, but hopefully it’ll get a little easier.

As for the show, I really can’t say enough about J. August Richards’ performance as superpowered Mike Peterson in the episode.  I always felt like Richards didn’t get enough credit among the cast of Angel, given that he was surrounded by more popular characters, but his performance on that show was always solid and often great.  In SHIELD, he really makes you feel that he’s a man who has been pushed right to the edge by the world around him, and that he has done his best and genuinely wants to be a good man but is heartbroken over the way the world has treated him.  His speech/rant at the end of the episode about the American dream wouldn’t have been nearly as moving or poignant if it weren’t delivered in such a convincing way.  His entire performance really grounded the character, making a sci-fi plot about a man with superpowers into a relatable story of a good man in trouble.  It’s the sort of thing that SHIELD should try to match with its casting going forwards, because watching a show where crazy and unbelievable things happen is meaningless without characters that you care about and with stakes that mean something.

One point I’m a little confused on, that hadn’t occurred to me until I read some other commentary on the episode and rewatched it, is whether or not Skye makes up the entirety of The Rising Tide.  I had assumed that she was just one member of the “hacktivist” organization, but I’ve read a couple of articles that assumed that she was it, that every Rising Tide post and leak was due to her, and that now that she’s a part of SHIELD, presumably the Rising Tide will be finished.  I find that unlikely, given the promotion of the Rising Tide over the summer, but I could also see some evidence for it in Coulson’s line near the end of the episode saying, “The Tide is Rising”, and also the fact that www.wearetherisingtide.com (a viral site used to promote the show) now just has a message saying “S.H.I.E.L.D. is onto us.  Going dark.  We will be back when they least expect it.”  If we assume that www.wearetherisingtide.com was intended to be entirely Skye’s work, then the message makes sense as something she would have posted before being captured by Coulson and Ward.  What do you think?  Was she the sole person behind the Rising Tide, or just a part of a larger machine?

One thing I just completely missed was that the doctor who gave Mike Peterson the Centipede device, who Mike saved from the exploding building and later called and visited in the hospital, was the person who sent the “third party” fake police officer to shoot Mike.  She’s there in the police car with him, and gives him a nod to start chasing after Mike.  I would assume that she was trying to cover up her mess, either on orders from the people who gave her the Centipede technology or in an effort to control the damage and hide her failings from that same group.  I guess I missed her while I was taking notes, because she was only onscreen for a few seconds.  Sorry about missing it, I’ll try to do better next time.

One last thing that I thought was hilarious was the interaction between Fitz and Ward.  I didn’t pick up on it the first time through, but Fitz has a habit of slapping Ward on the back, and every time Ward gets a look on his face like he’s barely containing his urge to turn around and punch Fitz in the face.  It happens in the first scene when they meet, and again at the end when Ward calls Coulson to tell him about the mysterious 0-8-4 situation.  Ward, Fitz and Simmons are having some Chinese food and beer and after Ward hangs up with Coulson, Fitz slaps him on the back again, getting the same reaction as the first time.  If this becomes a recurring thing, I sense a youtube supercut at the end of the season of ever instance of it.  It’s a clever little way to contrast the personality of the two characters without having to write a lot of dialogue or focus the scene on it.  I hope we see more of it in the next episode.

So those are the few things that I noticed on a rewatch of “Pilot”.  I have some other thoughts about the series in general, but those can wait til next week’s recap as they’re not specific to this episode.  Is there anything else I missed that you noticed?  Something that I breezed over that you’d like me to talk more about?  Let me know in the comments!