Percy Jackson EP, Courtney B. Vance on Season 2 Finale Twist From Book

SPOILER ALERT: This story comprises spoilers for the Season 2 finale of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.”

The Disney+ adaptation of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” just took a major step away from the books.

Or a minimum of it appears to be like that manner at first. If you ask govt producer Craig Silverstein, though, that big twist in the Season 2 finale was just a technique to in truth advance what “Percy Jackson” — each on the web page and the display screen — has always been about: children (or in this case, demigods) standing up for themselves after they’re uncared for by their dad and mom (omnipotent Olympians).

Throughout Season 2, based on Rick Riordan’s e-book “The Sea of Monsters,” Thalia Grace (Tamara Smart) is launched in a collection of flashbacks. A daughter of Zeus (Courtney B. Vance), it was Thalia who first led Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries) and Luke (Charlie Bushnell) to security at Camp Half-Blood after a troublesome journey affected by fixed monster fights. It’s revealed in the books that Thalia never grew to become a camper herself because the Furies attacked before she may enter. She saved her companions, however virtually misplaced her life in the course of — until Zeus stepped in, reworking her dying physique right into a magical pine tree with the energy to guard the camp from monsters. In the TV collection, however, that story turns out to be a lie: The Furies never touched Thalia. Sent by Hades (Jay Duplass) to show her against her father, they told her of the Great Prophecy, which decrees that a baby of the “big three” (Zeus, Hades and Poseidon) will decide that both saves the gods or destroys them, and clarify that Zeus plans to make use of her as a weapon. Thalia is enraged, since Zeus has never been a gift mum or dad, and she or he tells him as a lot when he spontaneously exhibits as much as sway her. So he turns her into the tree as punishment, and to stop her from ruining the reign of Olympus. It’s not precisely an act of fatherly love.

“Zeus is saying, ‘There’s this thing I was going to tell you about. Now I have to,’” Silverstein says. “‘You’re on the cusp of becoming super relevant to it. You’re going to turn 16 really, really soon. But good news: You’re going to be the princess of Olympus! I’m going to elevate you to be over everybody else.’ He just hasn’t been paying attention to her, and does not know that that’s not how you sell Thalia.”

Silverstein says the “Percy Jackson” writers had the concept for that twist about midway by way of writing Season 2, however initially “held it at arm’s length.” By the time they have been writing the finale, however, they realized those earlier flashbacks of Thalia lent themselves to a darker version of her final dialog with Zeus. “You see her and how she was the leader of this group that didn’t want anything to do with her father’s world,” Silverstein says. “Even before she got turned into a tree, she had a grudge against Zeus, the flames of which are fanned by Luke, who’s got issues with his dad, Hermes.”

Silverstein provides, “At the same time, these characters are heroes who care about each other. ‘We take care of our own’ is that trio’s motto.” In other phrases, Thalia’s feud with Zeus doesn’t imply she’s on the same path as Luke, who betrayed Annabeth and other campers by becoming a member of Kronos’ fight to overthrow the gods. “All of this is in service of activating the last line of Rick’s book, which is Percy looking at Thalia Grace and saying, ‘I had a feeling that this person could be my best friend or my worst enemy.’”

Vance was forged as Zeus following the dying of Lance Reddick, who performed the sky god in Season 1. Like the writers, he approaches “Percy Jackson” first and foremost as a household story. Calling Reddick a “dear friend,” Vance began his time on the present by addressing the painful elephant in the room. “People didn’t want to impact my experience by talking about Lance, so they didn’t quite know what to do or say,” he says. “So I asked for a moment of silence for folks to honor him. I can’t Bogart my way in — transitions take time. I said I’m grateful that I’m here, and acknowledged that Lance was the man. Folks were appreciative of the time to breathe.”

From there, Vance zoned in on the interpersonal dynamics between Zeus and Thalia. He says he wasn’t considering about Greek mythology “at all. The focus was a father and a daughter falling out.” So he pulled from his personal experience; together with his spouse, Angela Bassett, he has 19-year-old twins. When he and his youngsters disagree, he says, sometimes “you go, ‘OK, let me see if I can just switch some things around.’ But every now and then, it ain’t happening. ‘But I don’t understand why!’ ‘You don’t have to understand why on this one. It ain’t happening.‘”

That’s the sort of cussed, unresolvable battle Thalia and Zeus have been having, and it permits “Percy Jackson” to place Zeus’ poor parenting on display screen in a manner it hasn’t been before. “She called him out, and he made a decision to Zeus her instead of to father her,” Vance says. Yes, in this present, that means weaponizing his godly powers to basically paralyze her for years — however Vance centered on Zeus’ actions as a manifestation of an grownup’s unfair rage towards a baby who merely expressed their emotions. “And what does that mean when you Zeus your daughter? What does that mean about your relationship and her life?”

It means “existential stakes” are coming, Silverstein says, explaining that the shift in Thalia’s backstory is meant to “bring the Great Prophecy forward in the show. The gods are being jerks — who are immortal, so they don’t care. But the Prophecy means that the Olympians can fall the way the Titans did before them. They can no longer rely on just being immortal.”

It all goes again to the present’s intention to convey Mount Olympus right down to a more grounded place, making it potential to explore fraught, messy familial relationships. “Poseidon [Toby Stephens] says the greatest fear the gods ever had was that their fate would rest in the hands of their children. That means the Olympians are feeling a little more human,” Silverstein says. “Because at some point, we get old. Unlike the gods, we have to depend on our family and kids to take care of us. That’s a scary thing for immortals.”

In Season 3, which Disney+ announced on Wednesday will premiere later this yr, Percy must work alongside Thalia while worrying that she may very well be the topic of the Great Prophecy — and that she’ll make the improper resolution. That pressure already existed in Riordan’s third “Percy Jackson” e-book, “The Titan’s Curse,” so including the twist to the Season 2 finale helps arrange what’s coming next. “Rick understood how it made the stakes for the next season real. Thalia has real beef with Zeus. It’s not theoretical, like, ‘Oh, maybe something will happen to make her [turn against the gods].’ Because otherwise, her father saved her, right? Then she’d be kind of a brat for being angry.”

The twist also units new stakes for camp director Chiron (Glynn Turman) heading into Season 3. He initially lied to the campers to guard Zeus’ picture, however he’s the one who reveals the fact in the Season 2 finale. “If you look closely at the books, Chiron’s kind of shady. He does a lot of things where he’s like, ‘Oh, I would go myself, but that’s risking me.’ There’s some questionable stuff,” Silverstein says. “Our Chiron is a rule follower, and the rules that he has to follow are very tough. He’s bonding with these kids, but he’s preparing them to die fighting monsters for the glory of the gods. There’s a bit of a conflict there.”

In the finale, Chiron says to Percy, Annabeth and Grover (Aryan Simhadri): “I’ve always tried to heed the will of the gods, and to be an example for the demigods I train and care for. I can no longer do both.” With that line, Silverstein says, Chiron is realizing he can’t focus anymore on the penalties he might face for defying the gods: (*2*)

“Percy Jackson” followers are notoriously protecting of Riordan’s authentic textual content. But with the new ending for “The Sea of Monsters,” Silverstein says, “Hopefully they’ll see that what seems like a humongous departure is actually not that big of a departure. I’ve always said this change is not as big as the change in Episode 3, where Percy learns about the Great Prophecy, the stakes of the Great Prophecy now get balanced against — and are maybe in conflict with — whatever the season prophecy is. That thing that’s just in the background while waiting for the fifth book is now very active.”

Vance, who just isn’t only a part of the twist however working to fill the Olympian sneakers Reddick left behind, laughs as he wonders how the finale can be obtained. “I’m just trying to be mindful and gentle with with respect to the fandom, because they they don’t play. I hear they’re the Real Deal Holyfield. So I’m just saying, ‘Let me in, y’all. Give me a little time.’”