Pigeons are the worst.
Seriously.
Ever played Spider-Man on PS4? Freaking pigeons.
Percy? More evil pigeons.
There’s more I’m forgetting that speak to my grudge against pigeons in media that I’m forgetting, but they’re there. I know they are. If there’s a pigeon in your movie, show, or book just freaking run.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk on evil pigeons.
Aside from the evil pigeons, this episode boosts evil camp activities directors who don’t mind if the children under their care are maimed or murdered or what have you. And I’m not even just talking about the chariot races!
He’s actively ignoring a problem as the evil pigeons circle overhead waiting for the barrier to fall enough for them to attack the demigods there.
Is he doing anything about it? Nope.
He’s more concerned that Percy has left the confines of his cabin and that’s against his little authority he has been granted after being punished all these years.
Mr. D is useless as ever. I’ll only give him a slight point for attempting to remind the students they shouldn’t kill each other. Only slightly though because he didn’t actually mean it. He just said it because he’s supposed to. It’s part of the rules and he could cursed or sued. Who knows?
Meanwhile, two children continue to try and save the camp, thus the world.
With a distraction firmly in place with Percy just roaming around the camp to give lip to the thirsty man with a copy of the rulebook, Annabeth contacts Chiron.
Who I suppose is as helpful as he could manage given everything, but it’s not much.
Yes, save the camp. You should do that.
Which we already knew we should.
Otherwise, the Great Prophecy might come true. Right, yeah, got that.
Got any other words of wisdom?
Yes! Don’t tell Percy about the Great Prophecy. Don’t even mention to him there’s something that he cannot know about, because even that would be bad.
Annabeth with that news freaks the ever-loving heck out because she doesn’t want to keep anything from Percy.
Whoops, too late. You must. Is pretty much the gist of what Chiron tells her and informs her that Percy can’t help with this quest. Which leaves Annabeth to figure out how to save camp and get a quest and somehow keep Percy from tagging along.
Right. Yeah. Sure.
She’s smart, but that’s just one too many moving parts for anyone.
Not to mention, there’s no amount of convincing or lies or anything that’s going to keep Percy from saving Grover and thus the camp.
It’s too late. He got the dream. He’s all in now.
Which he does.
Unwilling to care that he’ll be tossed from camp or whatever consequences may happen – Percy sets off to find his own way to save Grover with or without help. Except Annabeth who wants to talk to him follows and so does Tyson and they’re all nearly murdered by this terrible camp director.
I feel like this is an excellent version of that Instagram thing of ‘tell me without telling me’ sort of thing.
Like gods, tell me you don’t care about your kids without saying that you don’t care.
Leaving that guy in charge certainly tells us that.
I really enjoyed this episode in terms of Annabeth doing her best to follow instructions and Percy being way too unpredictable for her to deal with. Combined with the added variable of Tyson who could hear what she told her sister at the start of the race.
Honestly, up until that point she was doing really well with the subterfuge.
Except when Clarisse needed to pick her second companion.
I wasn’t sure how Annabeth planned to not tell Percy something was up if she did win the honor of the quest, because she wouldn’t pick him, and that would be suspicious as hell to Percy. I don’t know. Maybe she would have thought of something, she is freaking smart.
I enjoyed the quiet moment of Percy working with his brother on the chariot and I hope we get one at the end at camp with Percy and Annabeth winning as we did in the book. Especially with the cheek kiss. Because Percy is right, with them paired together, no one should stand a chance against them.
Clarisse is a bit softer than she was in the book.
Clearly, she has a crush on Chris which is adorable. And she has no idea what to do with it.
Yet it’s so obvious that even Percy picked up on it. I loved that. I also loved that she wanted to kill everyone immediately realizing they clocked her awkwardness with Chris. Very nice. Very tween/teen vibes who have no idea what they’re doing.
The chariot race was great. Very much like the book with Clarisse winning because everyone else was distracted with not dying or rescuing everyone else.
Percy prays to his father for a sign and gets Hermes.
Who wants Percy to save his son, which Percy does not believe to be possible. Very solid pull from the book.
Also, I love that Hermes wants to protect his son now that it’s almost too late. Like dude, the fact that you weren’t here before was the reason your son is so pissed at the gods. Maybe you should have been a dad before now so you’re not begging the 13-year-old who doesn’t like him or believe in Luke anymore to save him.
You brought you to this moment, Hermes.
Not Percy.
Percy is just dealing with the fallout of the gods not caring about the children they have.
I am super happy that the gifts were the same as the book.
I love Tyson crashing through and rescuing them by accident as they set off, believing that they’ll never be able to return to camp because they broke the rules. But knowing that what they must do is more important than that right now.
Tyson wrote Sally a letter.
I’m really happy he was basically adopted by Sally, which is unlike the book but a lovely little add-on detail that just works and makes so much sense. I love it.
We use a boombox to expel the pigeons.
And this episode holds a lot of the whimsey and crazy and unexpected I love from Rick Riordan’s novels. We set out with the best of intentions and a plan to save the day, but ultimately everything goes to h*ll and we’re forced to make a new plan on the fly and hope we don’t die.
It’s very Percy Jackson.
I love it.
I love the dynamic and true focus we’re getting on Percy and Annabeth, which we do have a lot of in the book. Which is nice as a viewer, but also as a book reader since I know what happens in Book 3.
Anyway, I’m enjoying this season thus far. Onto the next! See you next Saturday!
Thanks for reading! Spread the love and read on!
Leave a Reply