"The War has started. A Great Stirring is underway."
Hello everyone!
Now, I'm not here to talk about what's good or bad or whatever, although I'll definitely touch on some of those things, but I'm mostly just here to give you a rundown of how the second season unfolded, what you can watch happen during it, and what to expect going forward.
But to do that, we actually have to dive INTO the story.
You can't really do a review without talking about exactly what you've been alluding to now, can you??
So without further ado.
Sharpen those weapons, demigods, and wake up, because it's time to pick a side. Will you fight for order or for chaos? And no, this isn't Assassin's Creed.
This is the second season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
So Percy Jackson learned he was a demigod back in the first season, got claimed by one of the Big Three, Poseidon, and then went on a quest to save the world so Zeus didn't incinerate half of it while Poseidon drowned it.
Now in season two, he's got an upgrade in that he has a Cyclops, Tyson, who his mom kinda adopted and they go to school together, and Annabeth pops up to tell him camp's in danger and they gotta go, fast.
The danger becomes evident when they reach the border and have to fight off a bunch of Laestrygonians, which you'd think would have mobilized camp defenses, but no.
Chiron's gone, you see. As a son of Kronos, he apparently can't be trusted, and the new camp director Tantalus is too busy chasing food around to really focus on the actual camp. He just wants to torment the kids and keep them preoccupied, which begs the question who's actually loyal to Kronos here, Chiron who always defended camp, or Tantalus who couldn't care less?
Percy and Annabeth now know that the tree maintaining the magical camp barrier and keeping monsters out has been stabbed by Luke, and is slowly dying of poison. They want to quest for the Golden Fleece to heal it - and also to save Grover, Percy's primary motivation, because through an empathy link with his satyr guide, he knows Grover's in trouble and locked up by a rather famous Cyclops.
Polyphemus. Sound familiar? The dude who got blinded by Odysseus on his way home? Yeah, that guy.
He's got Grover AND the Fleece, but Tantalus couldn't be bothered unless his breeches were on fire and orders chariot races instead. Annabeth plans to sabotage those so that Percy DOESN'T go questing, having spoken with Chiron and the Great Prophecy may be in the way here.
That plan goes all out the window when the camp gets attacked by Stymphalian birds and our fave duo have to team up to defeat them (using some bad music to do so), after which Tantauls bows to camp pressure and orders a quest.
But he gives it to Clarisse, and because Clarisse is all #teamgirl, she listens to Annabeth who tells her NOT to pick Percy.
Percy's like, nah, screw this, and just takes off in the night with a little help from Hermes, who wants to help Luke but is forbidden by Zeus from interacting with his kids directly. Percy promises to try, not that he can do much, and just as Annabeth tries to deter him, Tantalus comes to shoot at them because, apparently his anger management issues are REALLY bad. He names them exiles, while our duo and Tyson (who's been claimed by Poseidon, mind, making him Percy's actual brother) are headed for a cruise ship.
You read that right.
The cruise is headed straight for the Bermuda Triangle, which is where the Sea of Monsters is - which, again, is where the Fleece is.
Only there's one problem: the ship belongs to Kronos' forces, and Luke is on it. Luke, who doesn't much care for camp, because as it's revealed through flashbacks, he and another demigod, Thalia (daughter of Zeus, natch), picked Annabeth up along the way and, after rescuing the kid from Cyclopses, decided to make their way to camp. Only, the Furies attacked them on the border, and Thalia sacrificed herself to keep the other two safe.
So Luke has more than just a general axe to grind, and he says if Percy pledged to Kronos then and there, he'd prevent a second Titan War.
Percy nopes out so fast he leaves skidmarks, helped by a little explosion a la Tyson, and just when you think things are good Clarisse shows up.
She headed out on her quest alone, despite the fact the prophecy she was given (right after she decapitated the Oracle in true Clarisse style) told that she'd fail without friends, and she's now under pressure from both dear ole dad Ares AND a crew she promised Elysium to complete it.
Using a little force and a little trickery, Percy and Annabeth bulldoze their way into the crew, Tyson included, and they might have even succeeded in getting through Scylla and Charybdis if Clarisse didn't change her mind in the last second, the wind thermos Hermes gave Percy didn't open all at once, and everything didn't go boom just as Percy was trying to control the whirlpool they fell into.
Deeply unhappy to realize Tyson and Clarisse are probably both dead, he and Annabeth are taken in by "CC" in her spa and resort dealio, which is surrounded by Sirens and keeps demigods in a perpetual circle of "bettering themselves" to eventually be able to leave. Some have done so - but Percy deduces that CC is Circe, and she helped the lucky few escape when others became too despondent.
He gets turned into a guinea pig for his troubles, but luckily Annabeth knows how to read water signs and helps him change back - him and the pirates Circe kept as pets alongside.
Then they brave the Sirens, and Annabeth almost falls under their spell, but luckily Percy rescues her and they continue on their way to save Grover, with Percy's growing apprehension about Thalia because she keeps bopping up into his dreams, in which she destroys camp.
Annabeth assures him Thalia would never, though they get sidetracked when they finally sneak onto the island itself, where Clarisse is already captured alongside Grover and everything is a big, fat trap by Polyphemus, who's much smarter than he looks.
It would've all gone very poorly for our heroes - yes, even Grover in his wedding dress - if not for Annabeth distracting Polyphemus and getting badly hurt for her efforts. When Luke arrives - because, of course - Percy trades him the Fleece to heal her, but of course Luke takes them both back to the ship. Tyson saves the day, and they all hop onto Hippocampi to race after Luke's ship.
Once there, the initial plan is for Clarisse to get the Fleece and Percy Annabeth, but the roles get switched when Luke comes to talk to Annabeth and she distracts him so Percy can take off.
And also when Clarisse hears that the other demigods will be killing Annabeth, which she doesn't feel like allowing so she whoops their asses first instead.
Percy does, in fact, get the Fleece off Kronos' sarcophagus, in probably the funniest moment all season long wherein Kronos is like 'Imma tell you the Great Prophecy everyone's keeping from you if you pledge to me', Percy says 'okay sure', Kronos starts 'A half-blood of the Eldest Goods shall reach sixteen -' and Percy yanks the Fleece off with a ' yeah I decided, byeeeee'.
That is THE MOST PERCY JACKSON MOMENT EVER.
He and Luke brawl before they can all get off the ship, rendez-vous-ing with Tyson and Grover who've called out the big guns: Percy's mom, Sally.
She takes our heroes back to camp while Percy packed Clarisse and the Fleece off ahead on a pegasus named Blackjack he rescued from Luke, only for things to go haywire by the time they arrive.
Tantalus takes a fireball to the face and dies, and the border is collapsing with very few patrols guarding it, so Percy starts becoming the leader he'll eventually evolve into and takes command of camp forces.
Clarisse learns who the traitors are and thankfully gets rescued by Annabeth and Grover, booking it to the tree while Percy leads the defense against Luke and his forces, getting pretty beat up in the process.
Thankfully, Clarisse is a good spear thrower, and the Fleece releases Thalia from the tree and she shoots out a powerful lightning bolt that takes Percy and her out, and sends Luke's forces running.
In the aftermath, Chiron explains that he's been lying - Thalia didn't almost die at the hands of the Furies, but they talked to her about something, and afterwards, Zeus appeared. He wanted her to fight for him, she said AH HELL NAW, having learned of the Prophecy and wanted nothing to do with it, so he turned her into the tree as punishment.
Now she's awake, she sees Annabeth's older than she remembers, Luke isn't there but Percy is, and what the hell is even happening?
Tune in for season three when it releases later this year, and you'll be able to see ALL about it.
The second season of PJO definitely picks up the pace from its first, and manages to find its strides for the most part, but still feels wobbly in that the characters don't really resemble their book counterparts all that much. There's very little sarcastic humour which defined the entire series as a whole, and while it's enjoyable to watch, I feel it'd still benefit more from a couple injections of that.
Now let's talk that ending, because ... well.
I'm not entirely sure how they're going to write this so it makes sense. Thalia Grace, while unwilling to be a pawn in the Gods' game, also never sided with the Titans because she respected the world order the Gods instilled. Zeus was an absent parent, but she never outright hated him.
More importantly, she was turned into the tree for her bravery defending her friends from Cyclopses, not in punishment for defying her father.
This gives a hell of a lot of argument to why she isn't siding with the Gods at all and creates a conflict that will need some heavy lifting to bring a resolution about. I'm confident it CAN be done, but I'm not so confident the writers for this show can do it in a way that'll make sense, or at least that it'll be supported by other actions and deducements along the way.
It's the most jarring change of all, and I'm on the fence about it because I feel like it'll snowball an avalanche of latter changes that wouldn't need to happen at all if they'd just followed the actual script - the book - so I'm wary. Absolutely cautious and wary.
Still, we'll see come season three, I suppose. That's the only way around it!
... and because the show pushed the Prophecy reveal as early as this season, but never ACTUALLY gave it to viewers, here it is in full. Now you can chew on it while we wait.
A Half-blood of the Eldest Gods
shall reach sixteen against all odds.
And see the world in endless sleep;
a hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap.
A single choice shall end his days:
Olympus to preserve, or raze.
xx
*images and video not mine
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