“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” Season 1 Review

After multiple attempts of a Percy Jackson on-screen adaption, the Disney plus television series might have finally hit the mark.

Season one of the show follows the same story from the first book of the popular series “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” by Rick Riordan.

We first meet Percy (Walker Scobell) who is seeing monsters from the mythological world while struggling with bullies and ADHD in school.

He ends up getting in trouble with his substitute math teacher, Ms. Dodds (who really is a monster sent from Hades) and gets kicked out of school.

During this time, his mom Sally Jackson (Virgina Kull) and best friend Grover (Aryan Simhadri) decide it’s finally time to tell Percy who he is, a half-blood or demi-god.

This starts the journey of learning about the mythological world that is Percy Jackson.

They reach Camp Half-Blood, a safe place for other demi-god children to train for any possible threats, and meet Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries), daughter of Athena and Luke (Charlie Bushnell), son of Hermes who both help Percy acclimate himself in this new environment.

After an intense game of capture the flag (a Camp Half-Blood) tradition, Percy finds out who his godly parent is, Poseidon.

Being a child of the main three gods (Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades) leads to more threats and challenges since their parents are so important. Which sets Percy on a quest to find the stolen lightning bolt that belongs to Zeus.

He takes on this journey with his best friend Grover and the smartest person he knows Annabeth.

The show travels from the East Coast to the West Coast United States, as the trio finds themselves battling all types of obstacles and monsters.

Which leads into some of the pacing problems of the show. The stakes of not finding the lightning bolt is that Zeus will start a war with Poseidon, but no character in the show finds that to be a possible threat.

It is important to set the world-building of this whole complex universe, but it feels like Percy knows the answers too quickly for how young he is and how he just only found out his dad is a god.

The characters have no problem taking their time in the quest as they don’t feel any high stakes and they seem to already know the answers.

However, the acting from the main trio really sells the show and it feels these actors just fell out of the book and are truly these characters.

In episode three, you really see the trio finally understand each other and realize that they are the only people they have and it sets up their friendship beautifully.

Scobell is a true star and understands Percy brilliantly. He is a young actor with such a bright future ahead of him.

The set design and costuming are completely book accurate and how many fans imagined it when reading the series, which makes sense as the author is involved in producing.

*Minor spoilers ahead for episode 8*

Getting to see the reasons behind why Luke does what he does, is one of the best additions to the universe as neither the book or past movies were able to achieve that.

His character is a tricky antagonist, who is often seen as the villain but truly his reasoning behind joining Kronos makes sense as the gods never cared about him which the show allows us to see.

Season one of the show only serves to set up the story for what is going to come and it’s exciting to know Disney has renewed for a season two and seems to be wanting to adapt all of the main five books.

This show has lots of heart in it and it’s why people love the books so much and it will be exciting to see how they take the story and turn it into its own.

Rating: 4/5

Madison Rush is a second-year majoring in public relations. To contact her, email mkr5957@psu.edu.