TL;DR – We get to the pointy end of the season as characters clash together as the gods manipulate from the side-lines.

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 –

We are getting to the final stretch of the season as we enter the penultimate episode, and it is time for all the storylines to start colliding together. It’s a precarious moment, we haven’t even upset a god yet, and time is already ticking on the finale.

So, to set the scene, it is a kind of good news/bad news situation. The good news is that they know where the Fleece is, and they have escaped the clutches of the Cyclops, oh, and Tyson (Daniel Diemer) is still alive. The bad news is that Clarisse (Dior Goodjohn) and Grover (Aryan Simhadri) had to watch Percy (Walker Scobell) give the Fleece to their enemy, Luke (Charlie Bushnell), and he also stole a wounded Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries) with him. Now the Golden Fleece is resting on the tomb of Kronos (Nick Boraine), and soon he will be resurrected from Tartarus to wreak havoc on the world. Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

Action

With the stakes set, the episode leans heavily on action to propel everything forward, which is good because I think this might be some of the best we have gotten all season. When thinking back to Season One, some of the sword-battle sequences didn’t hit the mark of where they needed to be because much of the show was filmed on the Volume, and it left a flat landscape to work with. This season, you can feel that they have had a bit more time to train the actors (though there were a couple of obvious stunt people shots in there). But also, they worked out how best to use the space they were fighting in to create some dynamic battles.

Percy is fighting while holding the Golden Fleece, which slows him down, while Luke has both hands free, though he still can’t risk damaging the Fleece. It is these small considerations that take a potentially dull action scene and elevate it into something interesting. This is taken a step further by incorporating the fight in the cargo bay between Clarisse and Annabeth, against a horde of evil demigods. This ebb and flow worked well with the pacing to create an exciting sequence.

Prophecy

While I generally thought the rest of the episode was okay, or even very-fine-we-now-have-a-Pegasus. One area where I believe the narrative is suffering a bit is when it comes to the incorporation of prophecy. Prophecy is one of the core narrative markers for the series; nearly every book has its own prophecy weighing on the demigods, and then there is the Great Prophecy that ties all the books from The Olympians together. Because the understanding of the prophecies was shifted around at the start of the season or handed out in bits throughout, or there have been changes when characters, like Annabeth new of the prophecy. Because the understanding of the prophecies was shifted around at the start of the season, handed out in fragments, or altered in ways that changed who knew what, like Annabeth learning the prophecy earlier, the result is a bit murky here at the sharp end of the season.

Narrative

As this is the penultimate episode, it must do a lot of the heavy lifting to get everyone ready for the big climax next week, which can often be to the detriment of the penultimate episode. Thankfully, here, I found that not only did they succeed at doing all that heavy lifting, but they also crafted an interesting episode in its own right. Part of that came from the previously mentioned action, which gave a good crescendo to the episode. More than this, having these strong character moments for Percy, Luke, Clarisse, and Annabeth helped ground the episode in the emotions of choice. They all have a choice this week, but we also understand all the factors that are weighing on their decisions. This not only makes them more interesting characters, but it also helps bring strength to the whole narrative.  

Recommendation   

In the end, do we recommend Percy Jackson and the Olympians: I Go Down With the Ship? Yes, we would. The real test of this episode will be how it flows into the finale next week, but I am already happy with how I Go Down With the Ship has turned out, and also excited to see where it lands next week. Have you watched Percy Jackson and the Olympians: I Go Down With the Ship? Let us know what you thought of the episode in the comments below.

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

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and producers of Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Directed by – Jason Ensler
Written by – Tamara Becher-Wilkinson
Created by – Rick Riordan & Jonathan E. Steinberg
Based On – Percy Jackson and The Sea of Monsters 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, Charlie Bushnell, Dior Goodjohn & Daniel Diemer
With – Tamara Smart, Beatrice Kitsos, Marissa Lior Winans, Glynn Turman, & Virginia Kull
And – Aiden Howard, Kiarra Hamagami Goldberg, Andrew Alvarez, Mathew Yanagiya, Cassandra Ebner, Olly Atkins, Daniel Cudmore, & Nick Boraine