Spoilers ahead for “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” season two, “The Sea of Monsters” and “The Titan’s Curse.”
The second season of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” is finally out and, obviously, as a fan of the books, I have thoughts. “Percy Jackson” has always held a special place in my heart—it may or may not be the reason I am pursuing a minor in Classics—which is why I have such mixed feelings about the second season.
Based off of the second book in the series, “The Sea of Monsters,” this season follows the titular Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) as he heads into the terrifying Sea of Monsters (the Bermuda Triangle) to receive his magical quest item, the Golden Fleece. Continuing from season one, Scobell brings great wit and sharpness to the character, making him seem like the character from the books come to life. He is one of my favorite parts of the season.
However, what I’m having trouble grasping is the overall tone of the show. As a Disney+ original, the target audience is children. Seeing as “Percy Jackson” is a middle-grade book series, I can’t be offended by that. As with the books, the children at the center of the series are incredibly perceptive and intelligent, able to figure their way out of any problem. The adults of the series are absolute buffoons. Dionysus (Jason Mantzoukas) and new-comer Tantalus (Timothy Simons) who lead Camp Half-Blood are completely incompetent fools and help build the childish fantasy that comes from this book series.
Luke (Charlie Bushnell) is one of the antagonists and a more complicated character of the series. In both the first book and season one, he acts as a mentor towards Percy but is revealed to have been an enemy the whole time, betraying Percy. In the books, Luke ends up having his heroic moment at the end. However the TV show seems much more dedicated to making Luke a “good guy,” someone you can root for. The show purposely created a new, bland character, Allison Sims (Beatrice Kitsos), to be an antagonistic force in the show, perpetrating all the more devious acts towards Percy and his friends (fighting them, threatening them, etc). All the while, Luke mostly stands around and sulks in white quarter-zip jackets that make him look like he belongs in a yacht club.
In order to make Luke more likeable, his cause for overthrowing the Olympian gods had to become more justified, too. In the books, the gods do a lot of messed up stuff: Percy isn’t allowed to take a plane anywhere because of the possibility that Zeus, king of the gods and sky, could strike the plane with a lightning bolt to kill Percy. However, this threat of violence feels more removed reading it on a page versus seeing it happen to a real-life kid. This season had many changes to the source material, though, the greatest at the end was the final reveal.
In the books, Thalia Grace (Tamara Smart) is a daughter of Zeus and a target for monsters. Five years before the book series begins, Thalia, Luke, Annabeth (Leah Sava’ Jeffries) and Grover (Aryan Simhadri) make their way to Camp Half-Blood, but before they arrive, Thalia is taken out by monsters. The gods aren’t supposed to interact with their children, but Zeus, in a moment of kindness, turns Thalia into a tree. Young readers grasp the danger that faces these characters, and her loss lingers on the people closest to Percy. In the TV show, they added one final twist: it wasn’t monsters who killed her like everyone thought. Her own father, Zeus, decided to turn her into a tree—essentially killing her—because she was disobedient. Her own father killed her. I’m just not sure how the writers are going to get out of that one. Now Luke’s point about the gods being careless monsters makes much more sense.
The show also deviated from the books in making the actual monsters less monster-like, adding dimension and intelligence to them to the point where Luke’s thoughts about how cruel people are to the monsters also makes sense. Percy’s crusade to maintain the status quo with the Olympians in charge makes less and less sense as Kronos hasn’t really done anything outright evil in the show yet.
I honestly think it’s a good thing to change things up from the books; not everything translates well from book to screen, and the changes allow avid readers like myself to still be surprised. However, “The Sea of Monsters” suffers from being the middle of the series. We haven’t made it to the final fight yet, so all the momentum that we built up felt like it was leading nowhere. The last battle added to the final episode—not from the books—didn’t feel warranted, coming off more as action filler because this is a TV show, and we need action scenes.
Season three will drop in 2026, and I am curious to see what changes are made from there. Book three begins to deal with much heavier topics. Two of the main characters in Percy’s entourage die, and Percy even has to break the news of one girl’s death to her younger brother. I hope that the series itself matures with the audience and that the writers have a plan for the more complex dynamic between Percy and Luke to come.