Ron Does Stuff

It looks like Percy’s quest was done for after the previous episode, but even after the Nereid explained that the summer solstice has passed and that Poseidon has to prepare for war, he’s still determined to go to the Underworld and confront Hades. Let’s see what happens there!

We’re at a waterbed store at the start of the episode, and its run by Procrustes, a son of Poseidon and I guess Percy’s half-brother. There’s a passage to the Underworld in Procrustes’ store, and Percy wants to know where it is. Procrustes really wants Percy to try out one of his beds, though, even if Percy’s already told him that he knows that’s how Procrustes kills people. Thank goodness Annabeth is there to push Procrustes into his own bed and get him out of the way of their quest.

They find the door to the Underworld, and Percy hands out the teleportation pearls that the Nereid gave him to Annabeth and Grover. Part of me just wants to swallow one of those and shout “Darna!” because I am a stereotype.

Anyways, we don’t immediately see the guys in the Underworld after they enter the passage in Procrustes waterbed store, because what we get is a flashback to when Percy’s mother is trying to get him to go to a school for children with learning difficulties, and it’s Percy and his mom not exactly getting along. Oh, that reunion is going to be emotional.

We then go back to the Underworld, which is giving a little Black Gate if I’m being honest. They try to sneak in past Charon, but he’s not having it and has Cerberus chase down the kids. Not fun! But Annabeth’s got it covered, as usual, bringing Cerberus to hell with scritches because of course. With Cerberus down, Grover flies Percy up the walls of the Underworld with the shoes Luke gave them, while Annabeth uses Cerberus to get to the top of the wall by making use of the stress ball they brought with them from Procrustes’ shop.

The guys haven’t escaped Cerberus unscathed, though. Physically, they’ve got all their bits and pieces together, but Grover lost his teleportation pearl. They’re going to have to make a choice once they get Percy’s mom. I honestly do not remember how this was resolved in the book, so I’m excited to see how things turn out!

We then get another flashback to Percy’s mom trying to enroll him in a new school and having trouble doing so. I’m not even going to joke about this because I’ve worked with some organizations that do work with people on the spectrum and people who have learning difficulties, and finding a school or a program that can be really helpful is so hard to do. It’s exhausting and frustrating, and I’m just listening to their stories. I’m not even living it like they are.

As they walk through the Underworld, they get to Asphodel, which in this story is more like a circle of Dante’s Inferno? I checked on Wikipedia, and in Greek myth, it’s more of the place where meh souls go, since the Elysian Fields are for the righteous and the heroic, and Tartarus is for the bad guys. In this story, it’s specifically for those who regret the choices they made or didn’t make. That ends up being an important detail, because Annabeth finds herself trapped there because of something she regrets. However, she manages to get out of it using one of the teleportation pearls, leaving Percy and Grover to continue on their own.

Now, I don’t know which part of the Underworld this is, but Grover almost gets sucked into a big hole, but thanks to Percy’s quick thinking, it’s only the shoes that Luke gave that gets sucked into it. However, Zeus’ master bolt appears in Percy’s bag afterward. Or, as Percy points out, Zeus’ master bolt appears in the bag that Ares gave them. Again, I don’t remember what happened in the movie, so this is interesting! The quest is done if they give this back to Zeus, but Grover is a real one and tells Percy that Zeus will have to wait because they’re going to save Percy’s mom.

But before we get to see that, we see another flashback, and it’s a heartbreaking one of Percy thinking that his mom is trying to get rid of him. The child actor playing young(er) Percy? Really good.

Percy and Grover finally get to Hades’ palace, and while I honestly don’t remember how they portrayed Hades in the movie, I know it wasn’t like this. And this portrayal feels more correct, and not just with regard to the Percy Jackson books, but to actual Greek myth. Or Greek myth as I know it via Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.

Hades presents Percy’s mother to him, and tells Percy to give him what he has so he can get his mother back. The problem is Percy thinks that what Hades wants is the master bolt, when what he wants is his helm of darkness…which I am now realizing is Annabeth’s cap. It’s not a gift from her mom! If I’m remembering Edith Hamilton’s Mythology right, Hades has a helm of darkness.

Percy then figures out who orchestrated all of this — the Titan Kronos. So the big hole that tried to suck in Percy and Grover was Tartarus, and the reason they were getting sucked in was because the master bolt was with them. He also realizes that the shrouded figure in his dreams is Kronos, and hearing all of that, Hades now wants the bolt because he’s going to need it if Kronos emerges from Tartarus. Of course, Percy isn’t going to give up the bolt. Instead, he tells Hades that he’s going to get his helm back, but how is he going to convince Annabeth to part with that?

We then get one final flashback of Percy’s mom, and it’s of her calling on Poseidon, where they have a heart-to-heart discussion about how they’re going to raise Percy moving forward. And the flashback leads to the current day, where Percy is about to face off with Ares. Is Poseidon going to make an appearance in this battle?

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