'Percy Jackson' creators and Walker Scobell discuss season finale

This article contains spoilers for the season 1 finale of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.”

For Percy Jackson, the 12-year-old son of Poseidon and star of the Disney+ adaptation of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” all roads lead back to Camp Half-Blood.

Based on the popular young adult book series by Rick Riordan, the show, which debuted in December, stars Walker Scobell as the title character who discovers he is actually a demigod and is tasked with retrieving Zeus' master lightning bolt. before a war. He breaks out among gods on Olympus.

The season finale of the fantasy series, which premiered Tuesday, reveals that the camp Oracle successfully prophesied what would happen on Percy's first quest to save the world: he ventures west from New York to Los Angeles and discovers that Ares (Adam Copeland) helped. steal Zeus's master lightning bolt. Percy is able to find and safely return the lightning bolt to Zeus (Lance Reddick in one of his final roles), but because he misses the deadline, he initially fails to save his mortal mother Sally (Virginia Kull) from the underworld.

And instead of being betrayed by his best friends Annabeth (Leah Jeffries) and Grover (Aryan Simhadri), Percy realizes that his mentor, Luke (Charlie Bushnell), stole the lock and framed him as part of a larger plan. After admitting that he gave Percy a pair of winged shoes intended to drag him into an underworld abyss known as Tartarus, where Zeus's imprisoned father, Cronus, was waiting to seize the lightning bolt that was placed in Percy's backpack, Luke He urges Percy to partner with him to challenge his parents' power and restore Kronos' rule.

“One thing I feel like people always overlook is that I don't think Percy and Luke weren't friends; Percy feels like [Luke] “He’s his older brother,” Scobell says. He adds that deep down, Percy may agree that it's unfair for the gods to expect their demigod children to worship them and fight for them, “but he doesn't agree with the way Luke chooses to do it.”

The winged shoes that Luke gave to Percy in episode 3.

(David Bukach/Disney)

Jonathan E. Steinberg, who co-created the TV series with Riordan and serves as co-showrunner with Dan Shotz, says there would be no tragedy or drama if Percy didn't at least consider Luke's proposal to work for Kronos and turn him on. the other gods.

“Temptation is what creates tragedy, and losing sight of what you're signing up for is part of Luke's tragedy,” he says. “He's so angry that he's willing to sign with anyone who's willing to give him space to use his anger.”

Luke has his reasons for working with Kronos, which are presented in “The Lightning Thief,” the book that is the source material for the first season. He holds a grudge against his father, Hermes (Lin-Manuel Miranda), for not being present in his life and for sending him on an ill-fated mission, already completed by Hercules, that left him with a facial scar.

“By bringing Kronos back to life, I think there's also a sense of glory that he thinks he's going to get somehow,” Bushnell says of his character.

Considering that most of the season focuses on Percy, Annabeth and Grover, the writers needed to find ways to keep Luke involved in the story, Shotz says. In addition to Luke answering a special call from Percy and Annabeth in Episode 6, they decided to add flashbacks in the finale, where Luke teaches Percy about the rules of war and how to fight with swords during one of Percy's first days in the camp.

“It was crucial to be able to see that the relationship these guys had, during that brief period, was impactful,” Shotz says.

It's a departure from the book, where Luke lures Percy into the woods and tries to kill him with a scorpion.

“I like that they changed that for the show they're trying to recruit him into, because I think it'll make people feel more empathy toward Luke and how he feels toward the gods,” Bushnell says. Now that Luke has escaped the camp, he will become more powerful and resemble the captain of his own ship, Bushnell says.

Fighting the god of war

After telling Hades (Jay Duplass) that he will find his Helm of Darkness in exchange for Sally, Percy reunites with Grover and Annabeth on the shore near Sally's cabin in Montauk and comes face to face with Ares, whom Challenge him to a duel for The Helm of Hades.

Scobell says filming Percy's confrontation with Ares was “the coolest week of my life.” The role is played by Copeland, the Canadian actor and wrestler best known as Edge. “It's not every day you get to wrestle WWE's Edge,” Scobell says.

Once Ares knocks him down (yes, Copeland actually grabbed Scobell by the shirt with one hand and (safely) threw him to the ground), Percy uses his water manipulation ability to finish off Ares and draw the first blood on him. the fight.

A man in a black trench coat looks at three children in front of him.

“This is the first time he comes to terms with who he's supposed to be, the hero that people keep telling him he has to be throughout the mission,” Scobell says of the scene. “All the time, like in the fight with the Minotaur. [in the premiere]”He really has no idea what he's doing, but this is the first time he knows what he has to do.”

Despite regaining the helm and fulfilling his end of the deal with Hades, Percy feels both the duty and the glory of returning Zeus's lightning bolt to Olympus, naively believing he can use the weapon to warn Zeus of Cronus's plans and negotiate. the peace between Zeus and Poseidon (Toby Stephens).

“Part of the decision to let the mission timeline lapse was to remove any motivation to confront Zeus, other than the feeling of having to do the right thing without any prospect of gain or glory,” Steinberg says, acknowledging that it's a change. from the book. “I think it's one of those moments where you feel the feeling of a mother who raised her child well. She knows that if he doesn't do it, no one else will.”

Meeting the gods and a father

When Percy blatantly points out the dysfunction of Zeus's family on Olympus, Zeus goes to strike the young demigod with his lightning bolt, only for Poseidon to come to his son's rescue for the first time and abandon his position in the war. Percy thinks of Poseidon only as his father, rather than as the god of the sea, Scobell says, and he resents her for abandoning him and his mother.

Shortly before being sent back to the real world, Percy asks Poseidon a harmless question: “Do you ever dream about Mom?” Poseidon doesn't have a clear answer.

“As an audience [member]”I don't want to know, but I want to be in Percy's shoes and feel, 'I really hope so,'” Steinberg says. “What he does What we know is that Poseidon didn't say no. … I like that there's a moment where Percy gets a glimpse of what that family would be like, and it's not validated.”

A red-haired, bearded man in a light blue shirt.

But even after saving the world, reuniting with his mother, and returning to school in New York for seventh grade, Percy receives an ominous warning from Kronos in his dreams: “Your survival is the key to my return.”

“What I hope comes at that moment is that this voice that couldn't have been more terrifying… is now simply [Percy’s] grandfather,” says Steinberg. “There is no corner of this world that I am not connected to in this family history. it is a conscience [for Percy] “Not only do I belong there, but every direction I turn will have some really complicated, emotional, familiar terrain that needs to be crossed.”

From book to screen, and what comes next

Adapting the book series required several changes, and Steinberg says there was “a very quick meeting of the minds” between Riordan, his wife Rebecca, who is an executive producer, and the rest of the production team about how to choose which moments best captured the tone. , spirit and heart of the book series. Book fans have expressed gratitude for changes such as better explaining Medusa's backstoryand disappointment over other changes such as Deadline to recover Zeus' lightning bolt..

“Sometimes those things need to be connected in ways that weren't in the book,” Steinberg says.

For example, in the penultimate episode, instead of going into Crusty's Waterbed Palace, a shop run by Procrustes (Julian Richings), who is Percy's half-brother, on a side quest, the writers gave him Procrustes the opportunity to talk about Poseidon as an absent father and use the back room of his shop as an entrance to the underworld.

Another change was made to Percy's stepfather, Gabe (Timm Sharp), who is portrayed more as an annoying loser than an abusive father. In the finale's post-credits scene, Gabe discovers that Sally, who filed for divorce, changed the locks on her apartment. He opens a package on the doorstep of her house that contains Medusa's head and turns to stone.

That ending was always the plan for Gabe, Steinberg says. “Gabe says he answers Sally's phone, so we assume he also opens her mail. It seemed like the fact that they carried him over his own curiosity and did it to himself seemed like the right and appropriate ending for our version of Gabe.”

A boy and girl sitting in a canoe in an underground water tunnel.

However, one story that remained constant was the development of the fan-favorite relationship between Percy and Annabeth. Scobell says that the small details of their friendship “hit a lot harder” in the live-action adaptation, including the use of the nicknames Seaweed Brain and Wise Girl.

“I was drawn to the idea of this relationship between two kids who have never had a best friend,” Steinberg says. “They've had varying degrees of family, they've had Grover, they've had people who care about them, but no one who knows what it's like to be them. “I think that can be scary and also very comforting in a way that's hard to replicate.”

What comes next for the series has yet to be revealed. Disney said “Percy Jackson” was among the most-watched premieres on Disney+ and Hulu in 2023 — the first two episodes. broke Nielsen's top 10 streaming list – but has not announced whether the show will be renewed for additional seasons. The next adaptation of the show would be “The Sea of Monsters,” the second book in Riordan's series. (Rebecca Riordan I recently wrote on Threads who has read the scripts for season 2).

Steinberg says the writers have been having “fascinating conversations,” with “many moving pieces” to work out. Chief among them is finding ways to expand the story to include as many colorful characters and large-scale settings as possible.

Actors and producers say they are hopeful they can adapt the entire series, including the fifth book, “The Last Olympian.” Scobell and Steinberg say they would be particularly excited to introduce the Hyperion titan; Tyson, Percy's Cyclops half-brother; and Hades' “forbidden” children, Nico and Bianca di Angelo, who the showrunners confirm were mentioned in the background of a Lotus Casino scene in Episode 6.

At the beginning of the story, Percy has a kind of childlike innocence that makes him beg both gods and mortals to do what is right. “I think everyone at Camp Half-Blood and all the gods try to force you out, but what I like is that Percy never lets go,” Scobell says.

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