'Percy Jackson And The Olympians' Season 2 Episode 4 Review
Image Source: Disney+
The bulk of the latest Percy Jackson & The Olympians episode was exposition. It showed a young Annabeth on the run from monsters with Luke and Thalia. They were being pursued by three Cyclopes, which explains Annabath’s initial hesitation with Tyson. It also shows that Luke has always had bad blood with Camp Half-Blood, describing it as a cult mere seconds after hearing the name. Thalia implies Luke’s been there before and has already had bad experiences with it.
The flashbacks also serve as a vehicle to get Grover back in the action, though he is still noticeably missing from the present day. He was sent by Chiron to be Thalia’s protector and urges the three of them to make their way to Camp Half-Blood. After a close encounter with the Cyclops, Thalia and Luke decide to make their way to Camp for Annabeth’s sake. The prop department snuck a clever shoutout to the books with a box of Monster Donuts cereal with a cartoon hydra mascot in Luke’s hideout. In the books, Monster Donuts is a chain of shops directly connected to the hydra’s lifeforce.
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Image Source: Disney+
In the present day, Clarisse uses the powers of Ares to track down her enemies, namely Percy. Shen then proceeds to blow everything up in honor of the episode's title, “Clarisse Blows Everything Up.” Percy challenges her to single combat, almost bragging about how he defeated Ares the same way. Annabeth, however, puts her cleverness to work and takes out the undead warriors that would make Annabeth, Percy, and Tyson redundant to Clarisse’s quest.
What follows is Percy discovering his innate navigation abilities. He knows how many nautical miles they are from the Sea of Monsters and how many knots the ship is traveling at. Annabeth tries several times to get rid of Keloggia’s bracelet that she recovered from Luke’s hideout. The sea keeps throwing it back. At one point, Tyson has it and mentions playing with Rainbow, which book fans will recognize as a hippocampus. The last time Annabeth throws the bracelet into the ocean, viewers are treated to a mysterious silhouette in the water, which is most likely Rainbow.
Annabeth, despite all her cleverness, gets to have a powerful moment of vulnerability. She confesses that going back for the bracelet put them all in danger. Her struggle is not making the impossible choices, but failing to foresee all the human choices. Her going back for the bracelet is one such choice. The impossible choice is to face Scylla, a tentacled monster, or Charybdis, a violent whirlpool. Clarisse wants to take on the whirlpool, but Annabeth suggests facing Scylla as Odysseus did in The Odyssey. Since Clarisse has a full army of dead men, sacrificing six of them to the monster should be no problem. Clarisee hesitates since she promised them Elysium in the previous episode. This moment distinguishes her from Ares, who seems to care only about victory in the battle. As he provided her the ship and the undead army, one can assume he cares about his children as well.
Image Source: Radio Times
Clarisse and Percy had a moment on board the ship, which would be considered a bonding moment if it were anyone but Clarisse involved. She shares the prophecy with Percy and exits with a cold, “We’re not friends.” Then the filler part of the episode is finally over, and we get a scene where the characters take on Scylla. Clarisse then makes the human choice to face Charybdis as well. Percy and Annabeth decide to use his powers and Hermes’ thermos to control water and wind to come out on the other side of the whirlpool. Percy calls Tyson, who is sealed below deck in the engagement room, calling for more power. This moment would feel ridiculous had it not already been established that Cyclops have exceptionally good hearing. The thermos is dropped, the crew is put in danger, and Annabeth saves Clarisse from falling overboard. The ship starts to break apart, and the episode ends on a close-up shot of Percy’s eyes.
Given the cliffhanger in this episode, the next one seems to be full of action and will finally move the plot forward. As filler episodes go, this one was still enjoyable, and the flashbacks gave us a much earlier glimpse of Thalia than the books did. The setup may have been necessary, but the heart and humor of the series were traded for showing us the past. The fight sequence at the end wasn’t quite enough to make up for the filler, but setups are typically followed by some of the most memorable episodes.
Rating: 6.5/10
CultureSlate: Made by humans, for humans
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Source(s): Disney+, Riordan Wiki
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