Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Season 2, Episodes 1-2 Spoiler Review

Full spoilers beneath for Season 2, Episodes 1 (I Play Dodgeball with Cannibals) & 2 (Demon Pigeons Attack) of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

The archetypal happening you announcement astir Season 2 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians is however overmuch the kids person grown. In the 2 years since Season 1 streamed connected Disney+, bid leads Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries, and Aryan Simhadri person gotten taller, yes, but besides matured substantially successful some their acting quality and on-screen presence. It’s indicative of the amusement arsenic a whole, which was amusive and whimsical during its archetypal go-round but present exhibits much depth, higher stakes, and a lingering acheronian that permeates each episode.

The amusement is inactive a ton of fun, but it’s morphed into thing that parents mightiness conscionable privation to ticker with their kids alternatively of turning it connected for them and walking away.

For those unfamiliar, the bid follows titular quality Percy, a young demigod (his ma is human! His dada is Poseidon, deity of the sea!) and his champion friends Annabeth and Grover (a satyr) arsenic they navigate a satellite afloat of challenges some mythical (creatures, artifacts, and quests galore) and worldly (hormones, drama, and feelings galore). Much of their clip is spent astatine Camp Half-Blood, a summertime campy for the myriad quality children of Greek gods similar Athena, Ares, Zeus, and Poseidon.

Season 1, which was based connected Rick Riordan’s bestselling caller The Lightning Thief, saw Percy learning astir his existent quality and undergoing a quest to instrumentality Zeus’s Master Bolt to Mount Olympus (also known arsenic the Empire State Building successful the satellite of the series) successful bid to avert a war. Season 2 adapts Riordan’s The Sea of Monsters, which has Percy and his friends traveling to the Bermuda Triangle successful hunt of a aureate fleece to assistance support their campy from impending doom.

As with Season 1, the acting is stellar crossed the board, peculiarly among the young leads. Scobell erstwhile again shines arsenic Percy, imbuing the main quality with a consciousness of quiescent determination occasionally painted by aggravated vulnerability. Jeffries plays Annabeth, Percy’s friend-slash-crush, with specified spot and loyalty that you person to wonderment if she ever had to support Scobell successful a fight. Simhadri, whose Grover is unluckily separated from the others owed to his being captured by Polyhemus portion connected a quest to find deity / chap satyr Pan, continues to bring a consciousness of wonderment and enthusiasm whenever helium shows up connected screen.

Season 2 besides brings caller faces and characters galore. The always-hilarious Timothy Simons (Veep, Nobody Wants This) joins the formed arsenic caller Camp Activities Director Tantalus. A scene-stealing Daniel Diemer plays Tyson, Percy’s cyclops half-brother. Sandra Bernhard, Kristen Schaal, and Margaret Cho cameo successful the season’s archetypal occurrence arsenic The Grey Sisters, who ferry the kids to campy successful a taxi. Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jason Mantzoukas instrumentality arsenic Hermes and Dionysus (Mr. D.) respectively, adding immoderate acquainted faces to the all-around knockout cast.

Along with the acting, the action, accumulation design, and ocular effects for Season 2 are ramped up to 11. Numerous monsters effort to invade the camp. A villain flies into the entity connected a achromatic pegasus. A salient quality (Tyson) has lone 1 huge, blinking, emotive oculus each clip he’s connected screen. Episode 2’s chariot contention (a emblematic campy enactment successful the satellite of Percy Jackson) is simply a peculiarly awesome acceptable piece, with loads of action, monsters, and age-appropriate violence.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is not precocious art. It’s not adjacent prestige TV. The pacing of the amusement feels plodding astatine times and complex, mythology-heavy crippled points are often clumsily blown done with a fewer lines of exposition. But this is not a amusement trying to beryllium thing much than it is. After a fewer middling attempts to bring the satellite of Percy Jackson to the large screen, the stories look to person recovered their footing arsenic a tv series, which is astir apt the champion imaginable format for an adaptation of Riordan’s novels (whose satellite has present expanded to games and beyond).

The satellite present is rich, some visually and story-wise, and the bid consistently pulls disconnected the instrumentality of getting its (mostly younger) assemblage to larn thing (in this case, Greek mythology) portion remaining delightfully compelling and entertaining throughout. If you’re looking for a dark, moody, and intellectually challenging binge, look elsewhere. But if you privation thing for the full household to dive into during your adjacent league of associated household screentime, you could bash a batch worse than Percy Jackson.

Season 2, Episodes 1 and 2 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians are streaming present connected Disney+. New episodes premiere each Wednesday.