Harris later described Jones in a May 2009 interview, "I think you could sense that there was a great bit of ambiguity about the character which was useful. He's a bad guy that might be on the right side. He just might be fighting for the good guys. Those guys are always great parts because you leave the audience guessing about what side he's really on. He's one of those guys that if he's fighting for the right cause, he's a tremendous ally. But if he's fighting on the wrong cause, he's a formidable opponent. He's an anti-hero who is fighting for the just cause". Harris asserted in a February 2009 interview that he did not sign a recurring contract, meaning that the character was not meant to be permanent. He affirmed this by believing the character's personality rendered Jones incapable of joining the regular cast, "You'd have to keep [Jones] chained like a dog. You couldn't let him loose. You certainly couldn't let him use his hands. You know what the f--k he'd do". The crew first considered making the parasite look like "an alien," but shifted away from that in favor of depicting it like an amoeba to be more familiar to the audience. CGI modeling followed, along with a physical model, which was then used by the CGI department to simulate it being wrapped around Loeb's heart. To create the actual, physical parasite, the crew used a prosthetic chest and CGI to create the parasite, and a pig torso was used when the doctors made the initial incision at the hospital. During the scene where Broyles is talking with Mitchell Loeb, Mitchell mentions the words "Page 47". The number 47 bears a huge significance to another J. J. Abrams show, "Alias". The premiere of "In Which We Meet Mr. Jones" was watched by an estimated 8.61 million viewers in the United States. It received a 5.2/8 rating among all households. Travis Fickett of IGN disliked the episode, criticizing it as "sloppy," the science as "repeating itself," and the fringe element [the parasite] as "especially goofy"; he rated the episode 6.0/10. Writing for Mania.com, critic Stephen Lackey thought Anna Torv's performance "felt forced", but heaped praise on John Noble. Lackey believes Torv and Joshua Jackson have good chemistry, and consequently partly disliked the episode because they had few scenes together. He also thought the case of the week was "fairly entertaining," but the storyline was "just...passable", as he wanted the show "to be done with all of the introductions and get more into the mystery of the pattern".