TL;DR – Some staging issues aside, I am glad to see that Percy Jackson stuck the landing as it brought season 1 to a close.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this series.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians Review –

Well, we have come to the end of the first and hopefully not the last season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians and what a season it has been. But the critical question we must always ask in the final episode of a season-long story is: Did they stick the landing? Which is slightly more difficult with the God of the Skies is your enemy. 

So to set the scene, at the end of We Find Out The Truth, Sort Of  Percy (Walker Scobell) had a revelation about the whole situation and the oncoming war. For you see, there is someone even more ancient than the Greek Gods stirring, and Kronos (Nick Boraine) is not at all happy with the Gods that defeated him, cut him into tiny pieces, and threw him into Tartarus. I mean, fair point. However, before Percy has time to tell anyone about it or possibly return the Master bolt to Zeus (Lance Reddick), he, Annabeth (Leah Jeffries), and Grover (Aryan Simhadri) are confronted by an angry Aries (Adam Copeland) out for blood. We will be looking at the episode and season as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

To start with, let us focus on the final episode before we dive into the season as a whole. The pun is very much intended. While last week did sort of feel like we needed to get all our narrative ducks in a row before we got to the final episode. I think it did help because we could get straight into the fight with Aries and blast through the rest of the episode. There is much pontificating, but in the end, I liked how they showed how much Percy has learned about the world he finds himself in, its rules, and, more importantly, how to bend those rules to your favour. I think it was also good for Aries to discover not to mess with a God of the Oceans when you are on the beach.

One of the interesting narrative choices that they made was cutting back to a time that must have happened off-screen during I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom. Three times, we cut back to Luke (Charlie Bushnell) giving Percy advice about the world, which at first feels a bit odd given where we are in the season. That is unless you know the books or have remembered that the last line in the prophecy about betrayal has yet to happen. From a structural position, they feel like they are there to make up for how quickly we left Camp Half-Blood so that the betrayal could have a bit more weight to it. I mean, it works because Luke raises some clearly good points about what happens to things that are small and scary, and taking down the gods is not a completely bad idea.

We also get the much-hyped showdown between Percy and Zeus, and it does not disappoint. What a command presence that Lance Reddick brings where one expression can chill you to your core. You can feel the power of the gods flowing through him and that Percy has a genuine chance of not making it through this encounter alive. It would have been nice to see more of the gods there other than just Poseidon (Toby Stephens), but that was probably just space for them to reserve the casting until a future date. One thing that you do see more in this episode is reliance on digital sets. You can forgive that for Olympus, but a beach, you could not have filmed on a beach. This is amplified by the ugly lighting that is all soft pastels, and look, if you have ever been to a beach in your life, you know the lighting is not ‘soft’.

Some issues aside, I do think they landed the season finale. The question then becomes, how did the season work as a whole? The first thing I have to say is to give an award to the casting director because they did a phenomenal job here. Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries & Aryan Simhadri work entirely as the characters they embody, but they have phenomenal chemistry as a group going on a quest. But it is not just our core cast; all the gods are great, and the monsters might be slightly elevated from the source material. An excellent example of all this is Virginia Kull, who plays Percy’s mother. She brings so much warmth and care to the role while being put in an impossible position.

One thing that we do get to see is just how good of an adaptation it is from the original work. While it didn’t always follow the plot details beat for beat, it always had the spirit of the books in mind. From a narrative perspective, this puts it in the same company as The Last of Us. Also, it worked as a quest. You had the motivation to get them across the country as well as the coming tide moving them forward, and then the all-important ticking clock. Where I would like to see them improve next season is on the pacing, both within the episodes and also between the season as a whole. Some areas got dragged out, and others that the show blasted through. While we got a lot of development for our main three, there needed some more work for some of the supporting demi-gods who will be important in the future.  

In the end, do we recommend Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Prophecy Comes True? Yes, we do. This has been such a delight each week. The core cast has been a blast, and it has been great to dive into this world. I hope we get to see more of it because I would like to see them do a better job on the second book.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Percy Jackson and the Olympians yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    
Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and producers of Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Directed by – Jet Wilkinson, Anders Engström & James Bobin
Written by – Craig Silverstein, Andrew Miller, Jonathan E. Steinberg, Joe Tracz, Monica Owusu-Breen, Rick Riordan
Created by – Rick Riordan & Jonathan E. Steinberg
Based On – Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Production/Distribution Companies – 20^th Television, Co-Lab 21, The Gotham Group, Mythomagic, Quaker Moving Pictures & Disney+ 
Starring – Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries & Aryan Simhadri with Megan Mullally, Lance Reddick, Virginia Kull, Timm Sharp, Jason Mantzoukas, Charlie Bushnell, Dior Goodjohn, Adam Copeland, Toby Stephens, Glynn Turman,Julian Richings, Jay Duplass, Lin-Manuel Miranda,Ted Dykstra, Timothy Omundson, Suzanne Cryer, Jason Gray-Stanford & Jessica Parker Kennedy and Nick Boraine, Andrew Alvarez, Threnody Tsai, Azriel Dalman, Travis Woloshyn, Nick Boraine, Jelena Milinkovic, Kathleen Dubord, Garfield Wilson, Hiro Kanagawa, Olivea Morton, Simon Chin, Manoj Sood, Athan Irinakis, Sara J. Southey, Jennifer Shirley, Brooklyn Scotland, Alessandro Juliani, Joyce Robbins, La Nien Harrison & Cindy Piper
Episodes Covered – I Accidentally Vaporise My Pre-Algebra Teacher, I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom, We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium, I Plunge to My Death, A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers, We Take a Zebra to Vegas, We Find Out The Truth, Sort Of & The Prophecy Comes True