Percy Jackson & The Olympians‘ first season reaches its epic conclusion with the eighth episode, “The Prophecy Comes True.” Will Percy defeat Ares and safely return the helm and the Master Bolt? Will the godly war end before it ravages the mortal plane? Will Percy be able to save his mom? And who is the traitor spoken of in the Oracle’s prophecy?
The answers you’ve been waiting for all season are about to be revealed. Please bear in mind that there will be full spoilers for “The Prophecy Comes True,” so tread lightly if you haven’t seen it yet. Without further ado, let’s begin.
Also Read: Percy Jackson & The Olympians Episode 7 SPOILER Recap/Review: We Find Out The Truth, Sort Of
Percy Jackson Episode 8 Plot
Percy challenges Ares to single combat in which drawing first blood gets him the helm and Ares’ immediate surrender. Despite Ares’ confidence, Percy quickly overpowers him, securing both the helm and, in Ares’ own words, “an enemy for life.” Percy hands the helm over to Mrs. Dodds to help her accomplish what turned out to be her actual mission this whole time before heading to Olympus to return the Master Bolt and warn Zeus about Kronos.
When he arrives in the sprawling cityscape hidden inside the Empire State Building, the god of the skies tells Percy that he already knows about Kronos and that he’s going through with the war with Poseidon and Hades regardless; though he will let Percy live as a show of gratitude for returning the bolt. Percy calls out how stupid of a decision this is and nearly gets struck by a lightning bolt from Zeus.
However, Poseidon stops him at the last minute and formally surrenders in exchange for Zeus sparing Percy. He agrees and the two make plans to meet with their siblings about the Kronos situation before leaving Poseidon to have a heart-to-heart with Percy. After their conversation, he gives Percy a pearl that returns the young demigod to Camp Half-Blood…… where supposed true bolt thief Clarisse is still very much present.
Percy confronts Luke about this and he tells him that they couldn’t make an accusation like that without sufficient enough evidence, insisting that they will take care of it after the camp celebrates their victory. However, during the celebration, Percy and Luke meet up privately in the forest and the truth is revealed. Clarisse didn’t steal the Master Bolt, Luke did. With Luke also setting up the shoes and the bolt appearing in Percy’s bag to aid in Kronos’ return to power.
Luke insists that the gods are his enemy and not Percy, attempting to recruit Percy to his cause and make him see how the system needs to be brought down. But Percy refuses to fall into Luke’s extremism and the two duel. Luke nearly gains the upper hand but Annabeth rescues Percy just in time, having been invisible during Luke’s confession. Luke accepts defeat for now; but escapes using his portal-creating sword Backbiter.
As the camp session ends, Percy, Grover, and Annabeth say their goodbyes by the Thalia tree. Grover earned his searcher’s license and is off to explore the ocean in hopes of finding Pan, Annabeth is going to spend some quality time with her father, and Percy is starting seventh grade at a new school finally reunited with his mother, with the season proper ending with him heading into the world to do just that.
However, before we fully end the season off, we are treated to a mid-credits scene where Percy’s abusive stepdad, Gabe Ugliano, is on the phone with his divorce lawyer since Sally has now rightfully ended things. He finds a package on the Jackson’s doorstep that, unbeknownst to him, contains Medusa’s decapitated head. He opens the box and looks directly at the head, turning to stone.
Percy Jackson Episode 8 Critique
So the ending of Lightning Thief: The Book presents some challenges for adaptation as it effectively climaxes three times. There’s the main plot’s action climax with the Ares fight, the main plot’s emotional climax with Percy on Olympus, and the broader series set-up cliffhanger with the Luke fight. “The Prophecy Comes True” attempts to condense all three of these into a single episode and……. mostly succeeds.
I will admit, I was let down by how short the Ares fight was. It’s one of the coolest action scenes in the book and I was very excited to see it in live-action; but I understand that they only have so much time and if you’re going to shorten any of these three sequences, it’s this one. I do wish they had 9 or 10 episodes instead of 8 if only to let this scene in particular have more breathing room, but I understand that this is something beyond the creative team’s control.
Now, the “Percy on Olympus” stuff? That was handled extremely well in my opinion. The design and architecture of Olympus itself is appropriately breathtaking, Toby Stephens and Walker Scobell pull off some amazing acting work in Poseidon and Percy’s heart-to-heart, and the late great Lance Reddick gives a powerhouse posthumous performance as Zeus. He radiates an authority and meance that feels appropriate to the king of the gods while still making the character his own. Whoever ends up replacing him in later seasons has some tough shoes to fill.
Finally, there’s the Luke fight and the final goodbyes. Most of the Luke fight is ripped straight from the book and is just as captivating here as it was there. The two major changes are an incidental time shift from afternoon in the book to night in the show and the more consequential appearance of Annabeth. And I actually really like that Annabeth knows about Luke’s betrayal this early on and has to confront him right out of the gate. It adds a lot of extra weight to her character arc that makes it that much more engaging as an audience member.
And the goodbyes between the main trio were extremely bittersweet and heartwarming, feeling very much earned. Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries, and Aryan Simhadri have embodied these characters basically perfectly throughout the season, so seeing them say goodbye really does feel like watching Percy, Grover, and Annabeth say goodbye.
A more explicit goodbye between these three after the Luke fight doesn’t really happen in the book and Annabeth reuniting with her father doesn’t happen until Book Three compared to end of Book 1/start of Book 2 here; but I think both are welcome changes. I also appreciate how Grover searching the seas for Pan both deepens his friendship with Percy and provides organic set-up for his story in the second book and presumably the second season, The Sea of Monsters.
Percy Jackson & The Olympians is one of my all-time favorite book series and it is beyond cathartic to finally have a proper adaptation. It obviously wasn’t 1-to1 and there are a couple of things I wish had been done differently, but it was consistently enjoyable, often brilliant, and never failed to embody the spirit of the books. This finale brought the show’s Lightning Thief adaptation to a satisfying, if imperfect, conclusion and I cannot wait to see how they tackle the rest of the books in later seasons.
9/10
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