Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2

This Wednesday, the season finale of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Season 2, was released on Disney+. This season adapts the second book in the series, The Sea of Monsters, and follows Percy and his friends as they journey across the Sea of Monsters to find the Golden Fleece and save Camp Half-Blood. I really liked Season 1 of the show and thought it was mostly faithful to the books, and I was hoping for more of the same with this season.

I enjoyed this season just as much as the first film. It was about as faithful, if not slightly more than the first book, and was significantly better than the abomination that was the Sea of Monsters movie. It hits all the main points from the book, and I didn't feel like there was anything major omitted (except for the ending, but we will get to that). I really liked how the show handled Clarisse this season. I felt that the show gave the character a lot more screen time than she got in the books, as well as fleshed out her character to be just the bull-headed bully. I also liked what they did with Tyson and Percy's relationship, but I just wish there was more of it. I also liked how this season let Percy's personality shine through a bit more. We get to see more of the snarky Percy that we get from the books, which was a lot of fun. The show also does a great job of building out the world more. The first season was great at seeing the mythological aspects hidden in the US, and season 2 expands that to islands and out in the ocean.

The biggest gripe I had was that I didn't like how they changed things in the final episode. It is supposed to be more of a smaller showdown between Luke and Percy on a beach, where Chiron comes in and saves them, but instead changes to a huge battle at Camp Half-Blood. The big battles aren't supposed to come until books 4 and 5. I also am not a fan of the direction they are taking Thalia's character, but we will see how that goes next season. I think the biggest reason for these changes was budget limitations. Instead of having a bunch of centaurs ride in, it is cheaper to just have a battle with a bunch of humans, or on the cruise ship, it is supposed to be a ship full of monsters, but all we get are a couple of giants. From a story standpoint, I felt that they kind of glossed over the tension between Annabeth and Percy. It is present at the beginning of the season but kind of fades away towards the end.

Overall, I thought that this was another solid season of this show, but I can feel the limitations of a TV show budget, having to force some unwanted changes to the story. I hope they can figure that out as the seasons go on, so more changes don't have to happen.

Score: 8/10 Grade: B Recommendation: Check it out