Percy Jackson & The Olympians enters its second half with the fifth episode, “A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers.” Will Percy be able to take advantage of his newfound aquatic abilities in the quest for the master bolt? Will the true thief be revealed? And how will our heroes reach Los Angeles now that every mortal and immortal authority figure wants them in prison and/or dead?
All of these questions and more are about to be answered. Please bear in mind that there will be full spoilers for “A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers,” so tread lightly if you haven’t seen it yet. Without further ado, let’s begin.
Also Read: Percy Jackson & The Olympians Episode 4 SPOILER Recap/Review: I Plunge To My Death
Percy Jackson Episode 5 Plot
Picking up right where the previous episode left off, Grover and Annabeth flee the scene of what mortals believe to be a terrorist attack on the St. Louis Arch to try and find Percy by the docks. He soon emerges from the water and he and Annabeth share a hug before the trio realizes that the Arch incident means they can’t buy tickets for any sort of transport, so they continue their journey on foot.
After crouching by the side of the road to avoid a biker, Annabeth shares with Percy and Grover that she saw the Fates cut a strand of thread back at the Arch; meaning one of them is destined to die soon. But this conversation is short-lived as the biker turns out to be Ares, the god of war, who offers to help them if they meet him at a nearby diner and do him a favor.
Arriving at the diner, Ares explains that he accidentally left his shield at a local amusement park and needs Percy and Annabeth to retrieve it in exchange for a ride to the Underworld, having Grover stay behind at the diner as collateral. When the pair arrive at the park, they quickly realize that it was built by Hephaestus for his wife Aphrodite. And Ares left his shield so haphazardly because he was caught fooling around with Aphrodite by the blacksmith god.
After taking a trip on the “Thrill Ride of Love,” Percy and Annabeth find the shield attached to the famous chair he gave to his mother Hera, meaning one of them has to get trapped in the chair for them to get the shield back. Percy sacrifices himself, becoming petrified in gold, releasing the shield.
As Annabeth struggles to free Percy, Hephaestus himself arrives to tell Annabeth it’s impossible, only for her to emphatically declare that Percy is better than the single-minded desire for power and glory embodied by the gods and that she will not leave without him. Hephaestus empathizes with this and lets him go and the two return to the diner with the shield.
As promised, Ares provides the trio with a ride: a zoo transport headed for Las Vegas’ Lotus Casino, where they will meet up with Hermes’ personal driver. Onboard, Grover reveals that he knows who really stole the master bolt; as while Percy and Annabeth were on their mission, he had been buttering up Ares with warfare deep cuts and insults towards Athena and seemingly managed to get the truth out of him.
Percy Jackson Episode 5 Critique
“A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers” is yet another excellent episode of this excellent adaptation. Like the previous episode, this section of the book has never been seen in live-action before, as it was one of many that the 2010 film skipped over, so it was really cool to finally see fully realized onscreen and in a very engaging way.
As a standalone narrative, I really enjoy the themes of defying fate and becoming better than the system shown in Percy and Annabeth’s story. The episode opens with the Fates cutting a strand so the entire trio thinks one of them is about to die the entire time. Percy’s sacrifice is heavily informed by this and represents his heroism. He is willing to die to see the quest through.
But Annabeth, being the wisest of the three and having learned from Percy’s questioning of the system, rejects this narrative. She knows there has to be something beyond this archaic and unfair system, something better than it, so she immediately dedicates herself to freeing Percy and even Hephaestus eventually agrees with her.
And Grover’s subplot was great too. Given the heavy action focus, he’s often the weakest of the trio by default; so seeing him really get to shine as this master manipulator without anyone even realizing it was great to see. And I think it’s a testament to just how good Aryan Simhadri is in the role.
But the performance highlight has to be given to Adam Copeland as Ares. Most pre-release fan castings for the character tended to focus solely on the tough guy nature of the character, but there’s a humor to him that I don’t think would have been captured as well if they had gone with someone like Jon Bernthal instead of Adam Copeland.
He’s got the look, he’s intimidating, he’s funny, he’s got a great rapport with the other actors, and the God of War being responsible for toxic Twitter discourse is a pitch-perfect gag. The only thing I can think of in terms of complaints with this episode is that Grover’s final reveal rings a bit hollow if you’ve already read the books and thus know where this is going, but that’s extremely nit-picky. Otherwise, “A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers” is truly great television and I cannot wait for more.
10/10
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