The teaser trailer for Percy Jackson and the Olympians season 2 premiered last week. Now I’ve had time to scour through it, let’s breakdown the trailer – there’s a lot for what is to come this season and what’s upcoming in the already confirmed and in production season 3. As a long time Percy Jackson fan, seeing this world come to life is amazing and my inenr child is screaming. There’s a lot to breakdown from greek mythology and ancient world references to the lore of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson world.
Dramatic opening voice of Poseidon (Tobey Stephens) “A great sturring is on the way” just gives us all chills. Unlike when Rick Riordan wrote the books back in the 2000s, we know what’s going to happen next. The TV adaptation writing team can plan for the future plot and development that takes place over the five books in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. This teaser trailer is PACKED with references to the season, hints to the future and more greek mythology than fans are ready for.
“War is inevitable” rings throughout the trailer even though it’s a line from the first 15 seconds. The Sea of Monsters is where the war between Camp Half-Blood and Kronos really begins, Rick didn’t know it at the time but he was setting up something big for the books he hadn’t written yet. Luke’s betrayal at the end of the Lightning Thief (Book 1 / Series 1) triggers a much larger conflict and it takes shape throughout book 2 (series 2) The Sea of Monsters. My educated guess is this is a vision of Half-Blood hill with Kronos and Luke’s army launching an attack on Camp. The white light reflecting in the middle, I would guess is Luke Castellan (Charlie Bushnell)
Grover (played by Aryan Simhadri) after being a protector for 5 years, bringing demigods like Percy (Walker Scobell) and Annabeth (Leah Sava-Jeffries) to Camp Half-Blood, finally gets his searcher’s license at the end of Season 1. This is a responsibility passed down through Satyrs where they search the world for the lost god – Pan, the god of the wild. Pan is the god of all natural things, every flower, tree and animal in the wild. 2000 years ago, Pan vanished due to the destruction and violation of the wild kingdoms by the humans. He is believed to be dead by many, but Satyrs like Grover continue to search for him.
As in the books, it’s all from Percy’s first person perspective we don’t get to see or hear about much from Grover’s time searching in the wild between books one and two. With the series being able to offer a wider view of what all the characters go through, hopefully we get to learn more about Grover’s journey as a searcher. The teaser trailer does tease this extra insight. Grover is also a fan favorite and more time with him is always a good thing.
The teaser shows Luke (Charlie Bushnell) pulling his sword out of a tree, fans of the series and those paying attention to Annabeth’s explanation in season 1, the tree on the top of Half-Blood hill is Thalia, the daughter of Zeus who came to camp with Luke, Annabeth and Grover, almost 5 years ago at the time of The Sea of Monsters. She died in battle allowing Annabeth to get to camp safely. To honor her, just before she died, Zeus turned her into a tree to help protect the camp. Or as Percy calls it ‘a pinecone’s fate’ – a personal favorite line from season one. While we don’t know that it is Thalia’s tree in this shot, I would guess it is. From The Sea of Monsters book, we know Thalia’s tree does get hurt by Luke, Kronos and their army.
Anyway, back to what we can see. We get a really good look at ‘Backbiter’ Luke’s double-edged blade. In the books backbiter is half celestial bronze, the metal that kills monsters, and half tempered steel so it can kill mortals too. This is different to demigods usual weapons like Percy’s Riptide and Annabeth’s dagger which are made of pure celestial bronze so can’t hurt mortals, it will just pass through them. Let’s also just take a moment for the white and stone colored, ancient-Greek patterned tracksuit Luke’s wearing in this scene. It’s giving off godly vibes, and like he truly believes it is the demigods time to reign.
“There are forces more powerful than the will of the gods my son”, this voice over from Poseidon foretells the whispers Percy hears from Kronos and his return from the depths of Tartarus.
Dior Goodjohn is playing Clarisse La Rue. She is BACK! The Sea of Monsters is really Clarisse’s story. This is her moment to quest and her moment to prove herself to her father. She is given the quest to retrieve the golden fleece to save Thalia’s tree. Percy sort of gatecrashes her moment. With Percy’s ‘tenuous’ relationship with Clarisse’s father Ares, you can see how they might not be too happy about the child of Poseidon getting involved. In the book, The Sea of Monsters Clarisse has a crew of undead Confederate soldiers as her workers. This seems to have changed for the series as it’s quite controversial to have confederate soldiers be who Ares would raise from the dead for his daughter. I’m happy this is an updated change that they’ve decided to make as it just doesn’t fit culturally right now. Also, Ares isn’t inherently bad or evil, but he is short tempered and encourages conflict. The win for Ares is war and conflict taking place, not who wins or why they’re fighting. Like in season 1, it makes sense that Ares would be a fan fo twitter. Clarisse’s undead army has been updated to include a range of dead soldiers and sailors, from this quick shot, it looks as if we have some soldiers from the American War of Independence in front and an ancient world sailor behind Clarisse and a World War Two sailor on her other side.
Dior Goodjohn was also heavily featured in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians panel at San Diego Comic Con, so as a Clarisse defender I’m hoping we’ll get more insight into her side of the story in season 2.
We also get a really good look at Camp Half-Blood’s arena for the highly anticipated chariot race scene. From the conversations had by the cast and producers at San Diego Comic Con, it sounds as if this set was almost entirely practical and built this amazing environment to film in. So let’s just appreciate set and prop designers working on the show.
Lin Manuel-Miranda as Luke’s father and the god Hermes returns – this is where readers first meet Hermes in the books. It’s great to see him return, I think it’s so fitting that Lin is Hermes. I know many fans were unsure about him in the first series but I think he truly takes on the role of the God of Messengers, Mischief and Travellers very well, you’re never quite sure how much to trust the gods but Hermes has spent more time with humans and you can feel that in the moments with Percy and Hermes. Hermes is Percy’s call to action this season. I’m hoping we get more moments where Hermes is trying to do the right thing by his children in the Hermes Cabin.
This teaser also gives viewers a glimpse of Tantalus as played by Timothy Simons. Tantalus has been employed as Chiron’s replacement who has been framed by Luke and Kronos. In Greek mythology, Tantalus was punished by the gods for revealing too many secrets to mortals, stealing ambrosia or for any of the other things. The myth varies but they are the most famous two. His punishment was either he stood in a pool of water underneath a tree, the water receded before he could drink and the fruit of the tree was always just out of his reach no matter what. The other version of the punishment is that he had a stone suspended over his head, putting him in perpetual imminent peril. And apparently the gods’ next punishment for him is Camp Half-Blood because teenage demigods are the perpetual imminent peril that ancient souls and gods should fear being in charge of.
This scene also shows us the return of Jason Mantzoukas as the God of wine and madness himself, Mr D. if you’re a camper or Dionysus for the mortals. Also a peak at the dynamics between Annabeth Chase and Peter Johnson Percy Jackson, a year later since we last saw them after season 1.
A little tease of one of the big monsters our heroes will face in Season 2. As seen in Homer’s Odyssey and in the Sea of Monsters lives Scylla and Charybdis. I believe this is a glimpse of Scylla who is a sea monster who has mixed descriptions but generally is top half a woman, with tentacles, and either dog heads or serpent heads from the waist down. The classical depictions and stories are different depending which version you read so I’m excited to see how the PJO team decided to bring Scylla to life. Get ready for the darker threats that come in the Sea of Monsters being featured in season 2.
On land enemies are closing in on Camp Half-Blood and they are featured in the teaser too. We get a quick moment to see Luke commanding his army of demigods who hate the gods (their parents) as they have been left unclaimed or don’t have a place within the camp is the children of a minor gods who have been claimed but don’t feel included or important enough to the main pantheon of Greek Gods.
Some of the named demigods in this army like Chris Rodriguez and new character Alison Simms are a part of this army. As I’ve said before, the show is not restricted to the perspective of Percy as confirmed by Rick Riordan, so we may get some more insights into Luke’s army, the demigods that fill it.
I believe this is Beatrice Kitsos as Alison, who is an original character to the series. She had ‘Graduated’ Camp Half-Blood and did not return as a counselor meaning she was left to fend for herself in the mortal world. We don’t know much about the character or who her godly parent is but we can assume she is either unclaimed or has a minor god for a parent; either way she would’ve been housed in the Hermes Cabin, where all the unclaimed or claimed minor demi-gods go.
Percy and Annabeth are featured in a lot of scene together. In the Sea of Monsters is where Percy and Annabeth really become close friends and we begin to get glimpses of their slow burn relationship that primarily shows up through books 3-5 and then in the heroes of olympus series.
Annabeth at this point in the story is alone, or she feels it at least. Thalia’s a pine tree, Luke has betrayed her and Grover has left to be a Searcher. Her found family since she was 7 years old, have all gone their separate ways. Percy and Annabeth are still new to each other, this is their time to form that bond in the Sea of Monsters.
Introducing Tyson played by Daniel Diemer, making his debut in the Sea of Monsters. Tyson is a cyclops, and Percy’s brother. To quote Percy two seconds later in the teaser “what?” is about the summary of Percy’s thoughts at this point. This is a shock to Percy’s system as in the year of knowing who his father is, the part where gods are also the parents of monsters, hadn’t fully occurred to him.
Most cyclopes are children of Poseidon and live and work in the underwater forge. Tyson, despite his size, is a child who chronologically is older than Percy but because of how Cyclopes’s age, is mentally 7 years old – at least according to The Demigod Files, a set of short stories by Rick Riordan. Tyson joins Percy and Annabeth on their journey to the Sea of Monsters, as quests have to be taken in threes. We’ll see how Tyson is depicted and how much they keep to the age lore for Tyson; as fans of the books will be aware, Riordan tends to write descriptions and then forgets and writes a different one by the next book. So whether or not this will be kept remains to be seen.
But the CGI singular eye is looking very good, I can’t wait to see more of Tyson in Season 2.
Finally to close out the trailer we get a moment with the three fates in their taxi and passing one eye between them. It’s a lovely little comedy close out where the fates call Percy, Annabeth’s boyfriend and the panic of every 13 year old of “he’s not my boyfriend” kicks in.
That’s the trailer breakdown. If there’s anything important that I’ve missed please drop a comment below!
Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2, The Sea of Monsters is streaming on Disney+ on December 10th.
