Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Series Premiere Recap: Origin Story

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Episode 1: "Pilot"

Every TV season there is a pilot that everyone is looking forward to.  Anticipation is high.  This can be a blessing and a curse.  This year's pilot to watch has even more burdens on it's shoulder, seeing as how it is the continuation of one of the first shared movie universes ever and it comes on the heels of one of the most successful films of all time.  So, did the Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D pilot live up to the hype?  Hit the jump to find out.

To start things off, we are treated to an ominous sounding voice over.  It is accompanied by some images of the Avengers and some static-y images of the Battle of New York.  Mike Peterson's son is admiring some Avengers toys in a store window.  Mike asks him which one he wants for his upcoming birthday, but his son shrugs him off.  Something is going on here.  Before we can find out more, a building behind them explodes.  Is it the Avengers to the resuce?  Nope.  Mike leaves his son with a friendly hot dog vendor and climbs the side of the burning building.  He throws up his hood to cover his face, and saves a woman trapped inside.  He leaves her on the ground and returns to his son.  The whole thing is captured by multiple cell phone cameras.

Cut to Paris, Agent Grant Ward is on a mission to retrieve something before it can be auctioned to a group called Rising Tide.  Using his secret spy skills, Ward is able to get into the bad guys vault and retrieve the item and beat the crap out the guys guards, in the first of what is sure to be many, awesome action sequences.  

After he is extracted, Grant meets with Agent Maria Hill.  It turns out what Grant retrieved in Paris was some left over Chitauri tech from the battle.  After some posturing, Agent Phil Coulson steps from the shadows, alive and seemingly well.  As I'm sure you'll remember, Coulson was stabbed by Loki in The Avengers and his death was the catalyst for the team coming together.  Turns out, Coulson faked his death, for that purpose, but don't get it twisted, he did stop breathing for 40 seconds or 8, depending on when he's telling the stories.  After some Fury ordered R&R in Tahiti, Coulson is back and has been given authorization to recruit a mobile team to take on the new super powered threats that have been popping up.  Insular, lone wolf, Agent Ward is his first recruit.  

Hill isn't convinced that Ward is the right man for the job, judging from the little poop she drew under team player.  Or a porcupine.  It looks like a poop though.  Ward isn't happy about his new assignment, but he has no choice.  After Coulson leaves, it is insinuated by Hill that what happened to him is not what he thinks it is.  The first mystery of the series, with more to come.

Throughout the hour, we are introduced to the rest of Coulson's ragtag team of agents.  There is more than just a pilot, Melinda May and Agents Fitz and Simmons, who take care of engineering and biochem, respectively.  They are basically one person and their in your face, disregard for personal space interactions with Ward were one of the highlights of the episode.  

Rounding out the team is Rising Tide hacker Skye, not her real name.  Skye was on the scene when Mike leaped into the burning building.  Afterwards she met with him and warned him about S.H.I.E.L.D.  When she left and went back to her mobile base aka her van, she is taken into custody by Ward and Coulson.  

Coulson is interested in recruiting Skye because she is "a blank slate."  In order to convince Skye that they are the good guys, Coulson injects Ward with a truth serum and lets her at him.  After sometime with the, maybe too, truthful Ward, Skye agrees to join the team.  

After some investigating by Fitz, Simmons, and Melinda, the team finds out that the building that exploded is actually a secret lab.  Using a found security cam, Fitz is able to recreate a scene from the lab, a scene of a man getting ready to bash in the brains of one of the scientists.  After some tests, the agents are able to deduce that the scientists are injecting people with Extremis from Iron Man 3.  People like Mike.

Speaking of, Mike is not doing great.  The Extremis is messing with his body and his mind.  He injures the foreman of the factory he used to work at and while visiting the woman he rescued at the hospital, we find out that she is one of the doctors that injected him.  He also kidnaps Skye.  

After a lengthy chase scene, the agents are able to stop Mike without killing him.  At the end of the episode, Skye is still on the fence, when Coulson gets a call about an O-8-4.  

This was a pretty fantastic pilot and it had Joss Whedon's hands all over it.  There were winks to Marvel fans from Skye's line, "With great power, comes a lot of weird stuff you are not prepared to deal with," to Simmons asking Ward if he is ready to on their "journey into mystery."  They also were able to reference previous Marvel movies without people who maybe haven't seen them getting lost.  The cast is great.  Skye and Ward are great POV characters and each agent has a backstory that is just hinted it, but it will be great to see it explored.

So, what did you guys think?  Was it everything you expected?  Are you excited for more Marvel characters to show up?  Who is your favorite Agent so far?  What do you think really happened to Coulson?  Let me know in the comments.