With its finale premiering on January 21st, Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ second season has come to an end. The season has received a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and is ranked third on Disney+ for TV shows. As one of the most well-known series of all time, up there with the Harry Potter series, most fans view the show as a great adaptation of the books.
The Sea of Monsters, despite being the shortest of the five-book series, is action-packed and heavily based on Homer’s The Odyssey, including many famous Greek mythological figures like Polyphemus (Aleks Paunovic), the Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis, and Circe (Rosemarie DeWitt). Many new characters are introduced as well, such as Tyson (Daniel Diemer), Percy’s cyclops brother, and Thalia (Tamara Smart), the daughter of Zeus (Courtney B. Vance). The TV series even introduced a completely new character for the show, Alison Simms (Beatrice Kitsos), who is a daughter of Apollo and has sided with Luke’s (Charlie Bushnell) rebellion against the Gods.
Many fans don’t enjoy it when the show strays away from the books, though. Walker Scobell, who plays Percy, has said that even he struggles with the cuts/additions they’ve had to make for the show. But it’s all part of the filming process, and shows don’t have an unlimited budget. Fortunately, Scobell has said that season three is the most book-accurate so far, which fans are really excited to hear.
Season two has not held up to season one’s viewership. Throughout its first three weeks, season two received about 483 million minutes of views, while season one received almost 1.3 billion in the same time frame. The budget for the show also did not change from season one to season two, even though the stakes were a lot higher this season. Although not noticeable at all, some critics have said that it is one indicator that a show is losing steam, and possibly why the show hasn’t been renewed for a fourth season yet. Either that or the audience got fatigued from the two-year gap between season one and season two’s release.
Despite all the criticism, the show announced that its third season will be released by the end of this year, teasing a clip at the end of the finale. Filming hasn’t officially wrapped yet, but fans are hoping for sooner rather than later.
Scobell has stated in numerous interviews that the show is about to get much darker and that he is glad the producers are leaning into that aspect of the series. In the Percy Jackson and the Olympians Official Podcast, Scobell discusses how, in the finale, we get to see a lot of bloodshed, something that wasn’t included in the first season. This, he says, indicates how the show is about to take a darker turn, and he can’t wait for fans to see what they’ve done with season three.
