Fine, I Will Review The Percy Jackson Show

   The YA scene in the late 2000s and early 2010s was stuffed full of failed book-to-movie adaptations, desperate attempts to ride the Harry Potter train. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief was not the first book to receive this treatment. Yet it somehow became the most infamous. 

    We can speculate as to why it is that Percy Jackson never really exited the discourse the way properties like Eragon or Inkheart did. Perhaps it's because Rick Riordan continued to add to the lore with two follow-up sagas set in the same universe. (As of this writing, Riordan is preparing a whole additional Percy Jackson trilogy.) Perhaps it's because, while those other movie adaptations merely tried to replicate the Harry Potter effect, Percy Jackson admittedly borrowed generously from the Harry Potter story template. Whatever the reason, young millennials have never really been allowed to forget the crimes committed by FOX back in 2010 and 2013.

    And so, when Disney announced it would be sponsoring a long-form adaptation of Riordan's novels--with Riordan himself involved in the process--the shouts of joy among the fandom actually managed to eclipse the "Rise of Skywalker" backlash that we were still only months into. And here we are nearly four years later with that first season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians finally on full display.

    The biggest talking point--both during production and release, from the filmmakers and the fans--has predictably been "isn't it nice to finally have an adaptation that actually cares about the source material?" In this way, the series is almost as much a response to those movies as it is an adaptation of the 2005 novel. 

    Way back when the Disney+ series was first announced in the summer of 2020, I spoke at length concerning my experience reflecting on both the books and the series as an adult. Mostly, this was just me reconciling myself to the fact that while I understand why the books spoke to me in sixth grade, I also understood why they spoke to me in sixth grade. The best adaptation of this story was not necessarily the one that blindly followed Riordan's text to the tee.

    And for all the hoopla around Uncle Rick giving this show his stamp of approval, this adaptation does allow itself some wiggle room. They smartly didn't just film straight from the book. The series translates a lot of what makes the story work in concept while even painting over some of the novel's oversights and contrivances. But some things do manage to get lost in translation, things that didn't need to be.

    I am labelling this a review, but the end product will inevitably be formatted something like an essay, and I will just have to live with that. Unlike most of my reviews, this will feature spoilers, so be forewarned. And also know that while this review is positively interminable, this is, believe or not, merely the highlight reel of the many thoughts that struck my brain like Zeus' wayward bolts while watching this show.

    I'll start by talking about what is probably the show's strongest point: the performances. 

    Every character is perfectly cast, in a way that goes beyond just "this is exactly how they were in the books!" All the actors feel wholly present in their roles, imbuing personality into every word. Throw a dart at the cast list, and whoever it lands on, within thirty seconds you can select a scene, a monologue, a moment where the performer's ability was just electric. This is consistent even for guest characters who only drop in for an episode or two. Adam Copeland's Ares is brutish, petty, charismatic, and absolutely delightful to watch. I genuinely hope that this show is renewed if nothing else so that these players have the opportunity to return.

    Coming from someone who was there for the Harry Potter movies but, especially during the first films, wasn't quite old enough to engage with them, I have to imagine that seeing Daniel Radcliffe first taking the wizard's cloak must have been much like what I was seeing with Walker Scobell. Where most of the Percy Jackson media plays him like a water-bending Ferris Bueller, Scobell brings a vibrant emotional palette to the hero: humor, yes, but also a deep sense of humanity. Also, this kid would probably have chemistry with a block of wood.

    Aryan Simhadri might have the hardest challenge as the best friend character, Grover the good-natured satyr who'd rather keep himself and his horns out of the monster's lair, thank you very much. But Simhadri's Grover never feels grating or nauseating, and the emotional heartbeat he provides comes from a place that feels very authentic.

    Still, I'll single out Leah Jeffries as this show's strongest player because Annabeth as a character should feel very straightforward. She is the Hermione analogue who relays worldbuilding information to the audience while also rolling her eyes at the boys for not keeping up with her. Yet Jeffries' Annabeth is multi-faceted, and you can parse which aspects of the character belong to the writing and which parts are handed by Jeffries.  I'd describe her performance as "without apology," but that brings to mind a sort of strutting Regina George figure, and Jeffries never feels like she is overcompensating. This also leaves space for moments of vulnerability to shine through when the action calls for it. 

    The experience of watching Percy Jackson and the Olympians is like sitting in on a party populated exclusively by people who love the book just as much as you do, which I think is exactly what the creators intended and exactly what fans were asking for. But this does pose questions. Mostly, is that enough?

    One of the things that repeatedly stood out to me watching this series was that, for a show predicated on refuting the BAD adaptation, it couldn't help but deflect to many of the same conclusions that the infamous film did: many elements of Riordan's 2005 novel don't translate well into visual storytelling, either by virtue of different mediums or because they just weren't strong story elements to begin with.

    I'll use episode 4, probably my favorite episode of the season, as an example. This episode shares the title of the book chapter it is adapting: "I Plunge to My Death." This is the segment that sees Echidna, the Mother of Monsters, setting her child, the chimera, after Percy, Annabeth, and Grover as it chases them through St. Louis. There's a lot going on in this piece in the way of character development, suspense, and scope that make it such a thrilling watch.

And, yes, the mythological hydra spat poison, it didn't breathe fire

   The movie chose not to include the chimera battle (or even the St. Louis Arch as a backdrop), which made a lot of book fans angry. The equivalent scene in the film sees Percy facing off against the Hydra, a monster which appears in the second novel (in a scene that is almost entirely incidental, such that I'll be surprised if a potential second season of this show doesn't significantly rewrite its presentation anyways.) The fact that the series did find a way to include the chimera has been cited by many fans as further evidence that the filmmakers just weren't trying hard enough. But the series' creative team had to bend some rules in order to make this chimera encounter work. 

    Homer describes the chimera as “a lion in front, in the rear a serpent, and in the middle a goat, breathing fierce fire.” The thing is supposed to look like some Frankenstein creation composed of lion, goat, and snake parts surgically pieced together. That is how a lot of Greek mythology creatures were imagined--just pieces of things put together with pieces of other things (the head of a bull on the torso of a man, the torso of a man on the body of a horse, etc.). The term "chimera" has even been adopted into literary and scientific jargon referring to any entity seemed to be comprised of discernible parts from an eclectic bunch of unrelated bodies, like a monster made of a lion's head, a goat's body, and a snake tail.

   In concept, the creature is supposed to invoke the awesome abilities of all these animals (and also breathe fire), but in practice ... having a snake for a tail might come in handy, but the form of a lion is already ferocious in its own right. Sticking shaggy goat legs on its derriere absolutely does not make it look any cooler. Neither does a random goat head protruding from its spine like a really aggressive mole. This is the exact conclusion that the filmmaking team came to when tasked with designing a chimera for the film. Screenwriter Craig Titley explained,

"When you describe it or read about it in a book, it sounds kind of scary; but when you try to production design it... it's got the body of a lion with a goat head sticking out of its spine, and then the tail of a snake. It's got a lion head, a goat head and a snake head. No matter how badass you try to make it, It's kind of hard to look at that and not chuckle." 

    The series found a way around this by taking some license and blending the animal parts together into this draconic lion with a formidable set of horns (as well as a scorpion's tail, which feels more borrowed from the Manticore, but whatever I'll accept it). This makes for a threatening presence--it is arguably the best designed thing in the entire show--but it does kind of run counter to the mythology of the monster itself. And this is one space where the showrunners kind of admit that, "Yeah, maybe those rotten movies had a point." In this case, that a literal interpretation of the mythological chimera would not work on film. You either have to replace it with something else, as the movie did, or radically rework its appearance, as the show did.

    The magic pearls were another reworked element from the book that Riordan fans hated. They were also, I'd argue, a necessary addition. In every version of the story, Percy embarks on this quest with a single mission: make it to the Underworld as quick as possible, either to save the world or save my mother. There are pretty high stakes at work here, both large scale and small scale. But in the books, the sense of urgency is greatly hindered by the fact that these kids not only cannot focus on the mission on hand, but also fail to see the warning signs every single time they walk into danger.

    The chapter with the chimera, for example, begins with Percy and team passing the St. Louis Arch and Annabeth begging to make a pit stop because she just really wants them to. Percy even asks Grover if he can smell any monsters (satyrs can do that), and Grover admits he senses something funny, but it's probably nothing to worry about. Then the monster shows up and surprises everyone. This happens like three or four times in the book. With the exception of the Ares quest, none of the monsters they encounter en route to Hades actually feel like true threshold guardians that the kids have to defeat or outsmart in order to progress on their mission.

    My first times reading the book as a kid this didn't really register to me, but after seeing the movie, I couldn't help but wonder why these kids were constantly, needlessly putting them and their quest in jeopardy because they really wanted that cheeseburger. Having Percy acquire the pearls as he journeyed west gave the heroes an excuse for having to always poke their heads into the lion's den.

    In this adaptation, Percy gets the pearls all at once, as he does in the book, but the story tethers these little mini-adventures back to the main quest in a way that doesn't make them into distractions (the fury chases them into Medusa's lair, they enter the magical casino looking specifically for Hermes, etc.) This overall makes for a stronger product, yet the series also manages to overcorrect. 

    It's as though the show writers became so self-conscious at book Percy's little habit of ignoring every warning sign and walking right into the jaws of the monster that they made TV Percy always spot the monster right off. Here, Percy and Annabeth figure out right when they walk into the Lotus Casino that this is where the Lotus eaters trap their victims ... and are then surprised when they lose five days, and all without ever really becoming distracted from their quest and falling for the allure of the casino, as they did in the book and the film. 

    The series faces a similar problem with distributing information to the viewer. The books were actually pretty solid with this, teasing out tension and twist in a rhythm that was engaging, and it is one element of Riordan's writing that I am actually more impressed with reading as an adult. Here, it's as though the showrunners were so intent on targeting fans of the books, who already know what's going to happen, that they don't care to craft that mystery for the uninitiated viewer. Narrative turning points seem to spontaneously germinate the moment they are called into existence when they should be carefully forecasted and delivered early on (and indeed, many of them were in the book). The idea of there being some kind of commotion on Olympus is foreshadowed all the way in chapter 1 when Percy notes the unusual storm clouds hanging over New York. This is well before Percy is offered a quest and even before Percy makes it to Camp Half-Blood. There are no storm clouds in this show. Chiron just drops that piece of information onto the viewer the nanosecond it becomes relevant. Who needs build-up?

Who the heck is Padfoot?

    The Harry Potter movies ran into a similar problem occasionally, cashing in on bits of lore and worldbuilding that readers of the book would be familiar with but were not actually established in the canon films themselves. But one of the appeals of a television adaptation was the promise to fit everything in that you couldn't in a 2 1/2 hour movie runtime, including the full intricacies of a mystery. 

    

     There was space for them to name drop Kronos in the first episode so his eventual reveal had a little more charge to it, but that kind of thing doesn't feel like a priority here. What this generally results in is uneven tension padded by the innate charisma of the players involved. But this does occasionally spill into thematic dissonance, such that I did sometimes wonder whether this show which "finally gives the books the respect they deserve" really understood what the books were even about.

    But first, we have to back up and ask ourselves ... what is "Percy Jackson" even about?

    The Percy Jackson saga imparts a lot from classical mythology, not just the names of gods and monsters, but motifs and character histories. The gods of classical antiquity were not necessarily fantastic parents, nor were they exactly perfect paragons of goodness. They were prone to pettiness and ruled by their appetites, and they left mass casualties in their wake. In this way, the gods of Olympian mythology make for prime character drama. In the words of actor, Toby Stephens, who portrays Poseidon,

 “Yes, Poseidon is a god, but he also has human feelings. Going back to the original Greek myths, the great thing about these gods were that they were just as fallible, if not more fallible than human beings, and they suffered the same problems.”

    Various retellings of Greek myths will vary in just how gory those fallibilities are, and we'll get to that, but in Percy Jackson, these character flaws basically amount to "pride." The gods don't want to sully themselves with the obligations of parenting, and so they retreat into their shimmering cloud palace instead of taking their kids on fishing trips. Some of the gods are more conflicted about this than others, but they all go along with it, whatever the consequences for the kids left behind. Percy's sense of displacement is aggravated in the way he feels abandoned by his dad. And that's the basic running question throughout the series. Can these heroes accomplish the grand feats their divine parentage qualifies them for while they feel abandoned and unloved by these parents?

    This idea of reconciling oneself to the reality of having flawed parents is a central throughline across the books. Luke is unable to do this, and that is why he falls for Kronos' lie. Percy meanwhile come to terms with this both by learning to see his own inherent heroism and seeing his dad as a whole being with his own issues, issues that do not reflect on Percy or his worth. Percy rises above his sense of resentment and uses that drive to resolve to build a better world instead of tearing the old one down. 

    This is perhaps easiest for Percy because of all the Olympian parent-child relationships we see in the books, Percy and Poseidon probably have the best relationship. Athena is very authoritative and strict toward Annabeth. Ares is outright verbally abusive to Clarisse. Meanwhile, the book doesn't really ask Percy to excuse any real character flaws beyond "dad can't come to your ball game because he has to go to work on Olympus." Poseidon himself is actually written to be very endearing to the reader. He's described as having a degree of godly solemnity, sure, but he's also written as a foil to the uptight Zeus. Just a chill god wearing Hawaiian shirts who lets you ride his pet sea monsters to your various plot missions.

    This is a bit of a step away from the grumpy sea king who sinks ships when he's in a bad mood, but this characterization also makes sense for this story. One way to help disabuse Percy of his disenchantment that the gods are just rotten to the core is to allow Percy and his dad to find some kind of meaningful relationship within the limitations of the mortal-immortal dynamic. Moreover, I just want Poseidon to be a nice guy for Percy's sake. The story wants this too. Toby Stephen's Poseidon only appears for two scenes in the season, but they are both highlights.

    But remember what I said about different interpretations of mythology playing up different aspects of the gods' personalities, including their character flaws? Let's dig into that.

    Classical mythology tells the story of Medusa, a devoted priestess to the goddess Athena. But her luck takes a turn for the worst when she catches the eye of (yup) Poseidon, who then pursues her. Medusa takes refuge in Athena's temple, but Poseidon follows her and rapes Medusa in front of the statue of Athena. All the while, Medusa prays for Athena to rescue her, but the goddess only feels disgust for her temple being defiled. Unable to punish Poseidon for his transgression, she turns her wrath onto Medusa and curses her in such a way that no man will ever be able to look upon her again. Thus was born Medusa, the gorgon.

    This behavior regrettably not at all uncommon among the Olympians. The conversations by which ancient societies decided things like morality and goodness tended to overlook marginalized communities, including women. But because Greek myths form such a bedrock of storytelling, these tales still play out in pop culture even today. This brings up the issue of how to preserve the bones of the mythology while complying with fuller understanding of things like power dynamics and accountability. 

    One common approach in modern storytelling is to incorporate the injustice of the gods into the storytelling. You see this in something like the Clash of the Titans remake or Netflix' Blood of Zeus. The latter still finds a way to humanize the gods, but the thrust of the story is concerned with the way the ruin the gods leave in their wake. Then you have something like the God of War video game franchise which literally centers on one dude going around killing the gods in vengeance for their wrongdoings.

   But not every remix of Greek mythology wants to play in this toy box with the intent of writing an "eat the rich"-style diatribe. Sometimes filmmakers just want flying horses and dudes throwing lightning bolts. You see this in something like Disney's Hercules, which uses some of the signposts of Greek mythology to tell a story more in line with Superman and also significantly cleans up the behavior of characters like Zeus. 

    Then there are remixes that find a sort of middle ground, playing up the Shakespearean tragedy inherent in the stories while also reworking the story to make it palatable to modern sensibilities. Hadestown does this with the love story between Persephone and Hades. The musical casts them as old lovers for whom the magic of their romance has faded, and the show teases the possibility that these two could one day rediscover the love that they once had for each other. 

    One crucial aspect of the mythology that the musical omits, though, is that Hades in fact kidnaped Persephone and forced her to be his queen. (Also, Persephone is literally his niece ...) And the reason why this element was dropped is pretty clear: you are supposed to root for this romance, and you absolutely cannot do that with such a large shadow hanging over this relationship. 

    But at the same time, Hadestown doesn't waste the opportunity to use this story and these characters to comment on the way that godly greed and megalomania have ruined the world. One of the reasons why Hades and Persephone have drifted apart is that Hades has thrown himself into building his underground empire while also stealing his wife away when she is supposed to be above ground bringing spring to the world. Her increased absence, and their marital discord, is what is throwing the world off balance, and a large part of the story comes down to whether Hades can see the error of his ways. 

       We can see that Percy Jackson has the most in common with something like Hadestown: hinging the narrative on the misdoings of the powerful people in this universe while also recontextualizing the story to keep all the players sympathetic. Riordan's book has a lot of this, including the bit about Medusa. 

    The book corroborates the idea that Medusa had some history with Percy's dad, but the implication is that they had a consensual romance. It even lets the viewer imagine that her monsterly curse does portend a streak of genuine villainy. And to be clear, in this story, that was a good call. In order to maintain that the gods are worth preserving, you have to make adjustments to certain stories to clean up their crimes, and sometimes that means letting Medusa be a monster. Yes, that does have echoes of the way that victims of abuse have been vilified by those in power in order to preserve the power structures that abused them, BUT it is still the better alternative to outlining the crimes of the gods in bloody detail only to default to the line that "they're just trying their best, guys, give them a break." But this is exactly what the tv adaptation does with the Medusa story. 

    Medusa in this version is made to be very sympathetic, granting the kids shelter from the fury chasing them, and it's also clear that this Medusa takes a leaf from classical mythology. Her exact account is vague, but it still rhymes with the language of sexual assault, with Medusa even calling herself, "a survivor." Actress Jessica Parker Kennedy described,

"Jon wrote a story of [Medusa] thinking that [Poseidon] was someone she could trust, and he broke that trust. She was feeling safe, and then the situation turned unsafe. So I chose to play that she was a victim of rape and total abandonment, not understanding why Athena would turn on her." 

    It's significant that Medusa is also the first monster Percy and company encounter once they're on their quest. The first thing to really test Percy and Annabeth's resolve for the mission their parents sent them on is this woman who was abused by both of their parents. There's some chemistry to that mixture. Certainly this would be a good space to have these two kids question whether they are playing for the right team. Some modern retellings of Greek mythology take this stance. Percy Jackson and the Olympians does not. 

    This is entirely out of line with the kinds of flaws that book Percy was asked to grapple with where Poseidon was concerned. Book Percy was not asked to reconcile himself to the reality of his father being a rapist. The gap in morality is roughly the difference between Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs Kramer and Dustin Hoffman ... in real life.

    Seeing who is producing this show, I can't help but be reminded of the way Disney is constantly throwing its own catalogue under the bus chasing social approval, especially when the situation doesn't actually call for it. This is like when Disney manufactures publicity for "empowering" their princesses when they receive the live-action treatment, except this is way more dissonant. And trying to be more socially mindful in your adaptation is not a bad thing. The showrunners made a very good call in racebending like half of the cast, but you have to think through the implications of these adjustments: you cannot "girlboss" Medusa and still cut off her head.

     Riordan justified the change in form here saying, “There are many versions from ancient times of what happened in that temple with Medusa and Poseidon and Athena. Who’s to blame? Who’s the abuser? What’s the real story? It’s fiction, but it certainly is important to acknowledge that there is abuse involved here. Abuse of power.” 

    But if it is abuse of power, it is abuse that is never reckoned with. Percy in the show does not linger on this little revelation about his father after the fact. This is not something he confronts Poseidon about when he finally meets him at the end of the season. (I also don't buy into Riordan's explanation that 12-year-old Percy is too young to understand patriarchy in the books, but 12-year-old Percy in the series can somehow get it.) 

    "Abuse of power" is not the kind of character flaw you can just write-off with "well everyone makes mistakes." The natural call to action isn't more patience. The nicest reaction is to call for those in power to be removed from their position. But here's the thing, that is Luke's ideology, and it is painted as an overreaction. And so, the show needlessly puts itself in an awkward position by trying to have it both ways.

    Yes, Kennedy gave a fantastic performance as Medusa, and yes it was interesting to see a version of Medusa where it's not a foregone conclusion at the start that the gorgon is going to petrify our heroes. Just the same, if the writers really wanted Percy and Annabeth to truly grapple with their parents' transgressions, the show would have to take considerable creative liberties with the source material. The deviations of the movies would be mild by comparison. 

    I want to close out talking a little bit about "heart."

    When we talked about the Jurassic World trilogy, I made a point of how "heart" is mostly discussed in the context of a piece of media lacking it. This line is typically doled out when critics want to dislike a thing but don't know how to anchor their argument in any established forms of analysis. Professional critics are just as likely to indulge in this as casual fans. You saw a lot of this rhetoric surrounding the Fox movies. Those awful Fox movies. Those shameless cash grabs made by people who don't know what they're doing and just don't care about the story. It's okay to dump on those movies because they were made with no heart. 

    But were they really? 

    While the series was still in pre-production, Alexandra Daddario, who played Annabeth in the movies, reflected on her experiences with the movies saying,

    "I loved ‘Percy Jackson.’ Like, I loved it. When I stepped into ‘Percy Jackson’ and got that job, I had no idea what it was. I was like, a bit part actor in New York City, you know? I was a kid, I was working at a bar, I didn’t have any idea of Hollywood or of all this stuff. And so when I got that job, I didn’t really know what I was stepping into. I knew it was a really big movie. And it was the most amazing experience for a 22/23-year-old to have."

    But she also expressed enthusiasm at the prospect of the property moving on without her. Saying, “I am so excited for the kids that are going to be cast in that and how they’ll inspire a new generation of young women. Like it’s so cool, Annabeth is a really inspiring character to people." 

    Daddario was also among those voicing support for Jeffries casting announcement when much of the internet was having a tantrum over a black Annabeth. 

    Similarly, original Percy Jackson, Logan Lerman, told the star cast of the new series, “The show looks amazing. I can’t wait to see you all crush it in your roles. You’re making a lot of people happy bringing these characters to life. I can’t imagine a better fit for Percy Jackson than Walker. You were so brilliant in ‘The Adam Project.’ I hope you like eating blue food the next few years. I think you have a hit show on your hands.”

    Even as they have moved on to other things, the actors still clearly take a lot of pride in their time with the Percy Jackson story. That to me is heart. That shows that whatever went wrong in execution with the movies, it had nothing to do with the players not having respect for the story. And this to me highlights the futility of basing one's reaction to, say, an adaptation of a beloved book series on whether or not we agree it had heart. I'd venture forth a guess and say that, yes, this new show has "heart," but that doesn't mean it always leans into the right instincts when it comes to giving the story exactly what it needs.

    I fixate on the show's shortcomings because that is the most useful feedback for a show in its first lap, but I do want to make it clear that I did ultimately consider the show a win. There is enough here that is genuinely good that I would be thrilled to see this cast and writing team take on the remaining four books in the series. 

    This series inherits a long legacy. Not just from a beloved book series, not just Greek mythology specifically, but from the shared heartbeat of needing to see heroes onscreen. It's something you feel especially when you're twelve-years-old diving into the pages of Greek-mythology, but you never really lose that. We will all need Percy Jackson for a long time. And I hope Percy Jackson the chance to discover who he is on the screen, because that's something maybe we'll need too.

    --The Professor