After a hot start to the first season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, things cooled off a little bit in the middle episodes. The last two episodes, however, brought everything full circle for an excellent ending to season one and the completion of the mission for Percy, Annabeth, and Grover.
The season finale kicked off right where the previous episode ended: Percy and Ares with their swords drawn in a standoff on the beach. The battle between the two was fun, when Percy called on the water to help him defeat Ares, I was pumped.
“I warned you. If you’re not careful, you’ll find out who I am.”
Percy to Ares after attacking him with the big wave.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
After the battle and winning the helm of Hades, Percy hand-delivers it to Alecto, so that she can take it to the Underworld and return it to Hades. Percy asks Alecto to tell Hades to keep his promise which we know to be returning Percy’s mom alive to Earth.
This episode looked fantastic. When Percy showed up on Olympus to find Zeus, the kid and I were very impressed. We both talked about how cool everything looked. It was really well done and gave the audience the same sence of awe and wonder that Percy was also feeling.
Lance Reddick was imposing and excellent as Zeus. His presence exudes authority and seriousness, so he was a perfect pick to play the chief of the gods. I’m truly sad that we won’t get more of him in this role, because I think he nailed it. RIP to a real one.
By the time we got back to the camp and had encounter with Luke, we had completely forgotten about the prophecy from the Oracle that Percy would be betrayed by somebody that he considered a friend. When it was revealed that Luke was the traitor, there was at least one audible gasp in my house. It was a great little twist that we didn’t really see coming.
Everything that Jason Mantzoukas does is excellent. Ten out of ten. No notes.
The ending was confusing on the first watch. We couldn’t figure out exactly what happened, so I had to look it up. It wasn’t very clear that Percy had already gone home to see his mom again and then was just having a dream. For a second, we thought that maybe Percy had dreamed the whole thing. I had to look up an explanation to make sure that we weren’t crazy.
I’ve seen some complaints online that the show is targeting a younger audience, and like… duh? The target audience of the book series is tweens and young teens. What were you expecting? My suspicion is that we will see the show “age” with our main characters if Disney+ picks it up for a future season (or seasons). As they get older, the show will take on more adult themes.
Overall, I have to say that I think the first season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians was a big success. We had a great time watching it, and listening to our almost-8 year old explaining some Greek mythology to her mom after watching the finale was cuter than you can possibly believe. We want more!
