Percy Jackson and The Olympians
Hey everyone and welcome today we will be talking about season one of the show Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Fun Fact, this show is based off a book series written by Rick Riordan and has been adapted once before. This series came out in 2023 and stars Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries, and Aryan Simhadri and was created by Rick Riordan and Jonathan E. Steinberg. So without further ado let’s get right into it.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians follows the demigod Percy Jackson who is the son of Poseidon who is also accused of stealing the God Zeus’s prized lightning bolt which is wreaking havoc on Olympus and about to start a war between Zeus and Poseidon. He goes on a quest with fellow demigod Annabeth and his satyr bestie Grover to retrieve the bolt and save his mother who is in the underworld.
Percy Jackson is a fantasy adventure based off a book. It has similar vibes to Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, or a Blood of Zeus .
Percy Jackson and the Olympians has been adapted once and while I enjoyed that movie, I read the books after and realized that nearly everything was changed for the movie which kind of became its downfall because the story moving forward after that was missing certain things. This show comes in and I was shocked in a good way that they managed to keep the content so close to what’s in the book. There are 5 books in total and I would love to see them all adapted and hopefully we can learn more about these characters and see what they’ll have to go against.
Percy Jackson is played by Walker Scobell and I thought he did a good job with showing how Percy Is still confused about everything that has been going on in his life but still will fight to figure out what happened to this bolt and how to get his mother back. We see throughout the show that he’s pretty courageous and doesn’t want to put his friends in harms way. I like how the show showed that he doesn’t go into this knowing how to use his powers and that his father is of minimal help to him but he is learning slowly. This was great casting for Percy and I enjoyed seeing this character being brought to life and I’m glad that they also made sure to add how he has a love for blue food.
I really enjoyed the scenes with Sally who was played brilliantly by Virginia Kull who really just gave off those protective mother vibes. She did everything in her power to let Percy grow up normal and In the show we see how sometimes that was difficult for her but she persevered. I love that even though she struggled she kept a straight face for Percy and showed how much she loved him and when they tried to tell him he’s the son of Poseidon he reminded them no I’m Sally Jacksons son because he knew his mom is the only one that raised him. Im glad in the end they are reunited and now she doesn’t have to deal with Gabe anymore ya know because he’s now a statue.
I loved Annabeth who was played by Leah Sava Jeffries and is the daughter of Athena. She is wise like her mom and great with making a plan to get their mission complete and definitely one you want on your side. She showed a lot of respect for her mom and honestly I don’t see why because her mom wasn’t really that helpful to the team and I hope to see that explored more in future seasons.
One thing I was glad they included was a little more about Medusa that hints that she was unjustly punished. She is usually shown as a villain and while they still do kind of show her as a villain they start of letting the viewer know that the reason that she’s even in this situation is because of the actions of Poseidon and Athena and she wasn’t remotely in the wrong. Unfortunately she still tries to kill the kids but I’m glad they changed that part to include more backstory.
I liked this version of Grover played by Aryan Simhadri. Grover is Percys best friend and even though Percy might doubt him sometimes he always had his back. In the past he helped guide Thalia, Luke, and Annabeth to camp halfblood which didn’t go as planned and this time his goal is to avoid that again and hopefully get his searchers license so he can find the god Pan. Many have tried to find Pan but I think Grover is the one that might be able to do it.
Speaking of Camp Halfblood I was excited to see the different cabins and how it based off who your parent is and how in some of the cabins they try to be the best to impress their parents like Clarice and Annabeth. It’s interesting to see what kind of respect you get based on who your Godly parent is and how there are cabins for the big 3 but they are often empty until Percy comes along.
Luke being the lightning thief is the one thing I remember from the books but I was interested to see how it would all play out in this show. I loved how the show showed how he taught Percy how to use a sword but by the time Percy finds out Luke is the one who stole the bolt Percy is a much better fighter. It’s interesting to see how he was so friendly to Percy only to betray him. He has so much hatred for his dad that it led to him aligning himself with the wrong people but can you truly blame him after seeing how they treat their kids. In the end he escapes and we learn he has a sword that can get through the protective barrier of camp half blood so it’s going to be interesting to see how that comes in play in the future.
It was cool how each god had a very distinctive look that seemed to be influenced by their role as a god. We see Dionysus who is just seems comfy because ideally he would be drinking all this wine and he’s not in any big meetings but even though he doesn’t have wine he hates that he’s camp director so he doesn’t put much effort in, Hephaestus looks like at any moment he was ready to build or fix something, Hermes looks like he’s about to go run errands which is on par for the messenger god, Ares looks has that like bad boy look or that he’s in a motorcycle gang and he might be looking for a fight which of course the god of war will look intimidating, Poseidon looked like he lived on a beach or on a ship in the ocean so his outfit was linen which is pretty relaxed and breathable, Hades looks like he runs the underworld with ease but he also gives off rich and elegant vibes but his outfit matched his domain and mostly consisted of dark colors close to black, and Zeus seemed like an important CEO who is charged with running stuff and even though its just his family from the way he’s dressed it doesn’t seem like you want to test him.
The show surprisingly was fast paced and I didn’t realize that there was enough from the books to squeeze into 8 episodes. I kinda wanted longer episodes just because when the episode ended I wanted more but I guess that also kept the excitement up and me coming back for more episodes. With that being said I’m glad they dropped clues throughout the season to possibly hint at season 2 and the involvement of Kronos so lets hope that the show gets renewed.
One complaint I had about the show was all of the beach scenes looked so fake. The lighting always looked weird and it also didn’t help that every single time they were at the beach there was not a creature or human there. I get filming out in public space might be hard but that is one area that needed that because it looked awful.
I think my favorite part of the season is the last episode when Percy goes to return the bolt. At this point and time Percy has been through a lot and he sees how even the thought of war between the gods affects the human world and wants to not only stop his dad and zeus from fighting but convince Zeus to stop Kronos before he escapes. This is the first time we meet Zeus who is played by Lance Reddick and he is so intimidating but Percy doesn’t back down. It was interesting to see this little kid stand up to his very powerful uncle because he believed that the world deserved a better chance at surviving and to tell him how much of a mess his family is. Zeus is obviously a know it all and almost killed Percy if Poseidon didn’t intervene but it was such a great scene that further showed that Percy will fight for what he believes in and that the gods care about little besides themselves. Unfortunately this is the final role for Lance Reddick considering he passed in 2023 so RIP to a great actor.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians was a great show to lay the foundation for what can become a great series. It was interesting to see the adventure that these kids had to go through to achieve there goals and I thought the main cast did a great job in their roles. I hope it gets renewed for season 2 because I would love to see how this interaction with Kronos plays out.
