Ron Does Stuff

It’s the last episode of the season! Let’s get right into it!

At the end of the previous episode, we saw Percy gearing up to battle Ares, the God of War. How is he going to survive this? I mean, I know he’ll survive since there are more books and another season coming, but I wanna know how.

We don’t immediately get to see that big fight though, because what we get is a flashback to Luke and Percy practicing swordfighting. Luke tells him that warfare is knowing the rules and knowing how to use them against your opponent, and the rule that Percy uses against Ares is single combat? I can’t blame Ares for laughing!

He does succeed in touching a nerve when he tells Ares that the whole conflict wasn’t his idea anyway, and that it was Kronos that’s behind it all. Ares looks like he’s going to win at first, but Percy gets pushed hard enough that he gets to use his water powers and deal the first blow against Ares.

Percy gets Hades’ helm as agreed upon — I really thought Annabeth’s cap was the helm disguised — and returns it to Hades via Anastasia Beaverhausen, whose mission it was all along. Anastasia Beaverhausen also wishes him good luck on Olympus, as he’s going to need it if he’s going to stop the war by returning Zeus’ master bolt. Annabeth tells Percy that he’s not going to leave Olympus alive, but at this point, Percy already knows that there’s no other option.

Just like in the movie, Olympus is on the Empire State Building, and there’s little drama when Percy hands over the master bolt, because the drama stars when Zeus still insists on going to war despite getting his master bolt back. Percy isn’t having any of that and tells Zeus to his face that his family is a mess and isn’t ready for Kronos’ return, and Zeus who have smote him right then and there if it weren’t for Poseidon coming in and surrendering to save the day.

With that one thing settled, it’s now time for Percy and Poseidon’t heart-to-heart, and I appreciate how restrained it was! There are a lot of things unsaid between father and son, but it at least looks like the relationship is mended a little bit.

Poseidon teleports Percy back to camp, where he’s given a hero’s welcome, but there’s still things to resolve back at camp. Clarisse is still in the camp because they don’t have proof that she stole the master bolt. Book readers and movie watchers know who did it, because one thing I remember from my Percy Jackson-reading friends is they did not like how early the real lightning thief was revealed.

OR MAYBE I’M MISREMEMBERING BECAUSE PERCY FIGURES OUT THAT IT WAS LUKE THAT STOLE THE BOLT. Maybe my friends were talking about how the reveal was made? Because this is definitely different from how the reveal was made in the movie.

And there’s the additional reveal of…Backbiter? The sword? I don’t think the Greeks named their swords, but ANYWAY, this sword acts like Magik from the X-Men’s sword, I guess. Opens gateways/portals/what have you.

You can’t really blame Luke for having the grievances he has, and you also can’t blame Percy for realizing that while their parents aren’t perfect, they are trying their best, as he’s seen for himself with his and Luke’s father. There’s just different ways that people process things, and in Luke’s case, he’s doing it violently. Unfortunately for Luke, Annabeth was able to hear everything he said to Percy about overthrowing Olympus, so he has to scram.

Would you look at that, that whole thing went down at the same time that Percy, Annabeth, and Grover can leave camp. Annabeth’s going to be taken to Disney World by her human father, Grover is going to search for Pan in the seas, and Percy is going to check if Hades has returned his mother to him. And he delivers! Sally is there for Percy, and we get a nice unsettling shift to Kronos visiting Percy and telling him that his survival is the key to his return. Then we get another shift to Percy waking up from that dream. I thought he would wake up in camp with his mother still gone, but no! His mom is still there, and helping him take note of the things Kronos tells him in his dreams.

All in all, I thought this was an enjoyable show! I do have to admit that there were moments where it felt very…sedate? For a show about Greek gods and mythological monsters, there were moments where I felt that they could have gone bigger and more fantastical, but I also understand that they’re not working with a movie budget here. Still hasn’t dampened my excitement for the second season!

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