{"id":296715,"date":"2026-01-22T00:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/296715\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T00:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:41:08","slug":"percy-jackson-season-2-finale-thalia-and-zeus-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/296715\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Percy Jackson\u2019 Season 2 Finale: Thalia and Zeus Clash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains spoilers for \u201cThe Fleece Works Its Magic Too Well,\u201d the season two finale of Percy Jackson and the Olympians<\/a>.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tPercy Jackson and the Olympians has been a fairly faithful adaptation of author Rick Riordan\u2019s beloved book series through its first two seasons \u2014\u00a0and Riordan, who is an executive producer of the Disney+<\/a> series and involved in its writing, has signed off on the changes that have been made.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe season two<\/a> finale, released Wednesday, makes several changes from its source material, The Sea of Monsters:\u00a0The climactic battle takes place at Camp Half-Blood rather than on Luke\u2019s (Charlie Bushnell) ship the Princess Andromeda, and Percy (Walker Scobell) and Co. aren\u2019t aided by Chiron (Glynn Turman) and his fellow centaurs, aka the Party Ponies. The episode also reveals that some demigods inside the camp have been secretly working with Luke to advance his war against the gods of Olympus.<\/p>\n

\n\tNo change is bigger \u2014\u00a0or promises to have more impact on the series going forward \u2014\u00a0than a flashback between Zeus (Courtney B. Vance<\/a>), the king of Olympus, and his demigod daughter Thalia (Tamara Smart). After beating back Luke and his forces and using the Golden Fleece to restore Thalia\u2019s tree, and therefore the barrier surrounding camp, Thalia herself is freed from the tree. That\u2019s essentially where the book ends.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe show, however, takes things several steps further when Chiron reveals to Percy, Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries) and Grover (Aryan Simhadri) that he regrets \u201cmany things\u201d \u2014\u00a0including that the story he told of Zeus turning Thalia into a tree after she sacrificed herself to save Luke and Annabeth is a lie.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think it\u2019s a really interesting change,\u201d Smart told The Hollywood Reporter. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s extremely engaging with her personality, because it creates this spin on the narrative of the show. Book fans will know everything that happens in the book, and most of it, they\u2019re going to want to see in the show. But some of it, I think, should be a surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis definitely counts as one. As Chiron relates, it\u2019s not Thalia who faces down the Furies as she escorts Luke and Annabeth to camp. \u201cThe Furies \u2026 did not attack,\u201d Chiron says. \u201cInstead, they spoke \u2014\u00a0until they said too much.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tZeus strikes down the Furies with a lightning bolt so that he can speak to his daughter about the Great Prophecy, which says that a child of one of the Big Three gods \u2014 Zeus, Poseidon and Hades \u2014\u00a0will either protect or destroy Olympus upon reaching the age of 16. Thalia, though, doesn\u2019t care to listen and tells Zeus that she\u2019s going to leave camp: \u201cHear my words \u2014\u00a0I don\u2019t want to be your daughter,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I will never be your weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tZeus, rather than continuing to try talking with Thalia, then turns her into the tree, ensuring that she can\u2019t leave Camp Half-Blood. It\u2019s a devastating revelation, particularly for Annabeth, who has carried guilt for years about what happened to Thalia. Chiron explains Zeus ordered him to lie about what happened, but the quest for the Golden Fleece made him realize that the Titan Kronos would use the fleece\u2019s power \u201cto raise his champion\u201d \u2014\u00a0whom he suspects is Thalia.<\/p>\n

\n\tThough the stakes are much, much higher than the average father-daughter argument, the scene between Zeus and Thalia also plays out like one that ends with a defiant teenager sent to their room. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCourtney B. Vance as Zeus in \u2018Percy Jackson and the Olympians\u2019 season two.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDavid Bukach\/Disney<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe is Zeus, but you know, you don\u2019t want to use your power on your daughter, right?\u201d Vance told THR. \u201cShe\u2019s your daughter, and she knows you. It\u2019s very tricky. [Thalia\u2019s attitude is] you can be Zeus with your friends, and your enemies, but you can\u2019t be Zeus with me. I\u2019m not having that, dad. Stop. And then he, instead of just taking a step back and saying \u2018OK, honey, let\u2019s talk about this later, because I really, I really need you to help me with this\u2019 \u2014to get her on [his] side, he just got Zeus-y, and that\u2019s not good. So whatever the consequences are for that, I guess that\u2019s what we\u2019ll see coming up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVance took over the role<\/a> of Zeus after Lance Reddick, who played the god in season one, died in March 2023. Vance called Reddick \u201ca dear friend\u201d and said when he went to Vancouver to film, he asked to speak to the cast and crew and acknowledge why he was there. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI just wanted to say that I\u2019m just blessed to be here,\u201d Vance recalled. \u201cThis is Lance\u2019s role, and I hope you would allow me the opportunity to find my way. We had a moment of silence for people to honor him however they wanted to. He was Zeus. I didn\u2019t want to take over without acknowledging him, and because I did that, they embraced me, which is all I wanted. It was a beautiful moment. It was a beautiful, cold day in Vancouver, and we began our process.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSmart also has a connection to Reddick, having co-starred with him in Netflix\u2019s Resident Evil series in 2022. She said that bond was part of why she wanted the role of Thalia, \u201calthough a lot of thought had to go behind it, especially the potential of me not booking it,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to feel that heartbreak, so I was definitely really thinking about it. But eventually I just realized, you know, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don\u2019t take. So I had to go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSmart also appreciated the father-daughter dynamic at play in the scene. \u201cWe\u2019ve all been angry at someone and had this kind of a conversation,\u201d she said. \u201cI think that the beautiful thing on that day was the support that we had for each other. We were good, and we weren\u2019t actually fighting. We were checking in [on each other]. I think that as much as this show is fantasy, there are very real themes that are explored, an I think that it comforts people to know that these themes are universal for everyone. I wasn\u2019t fully playing into my acting ability. I was pulling from real experience of being frustrated. I mean, when I was 16, I definitely had that kind of a conversation with my dad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVance also noted that in playing Zeus, he tries to carry the mindset that as an all-powerful god, he doesn\u2019t really have to consider the way his actions come across to others. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen people feel that they\u2019re better than [others], you see what that can negatively turn into, where people are things and objects for your pleasure, for you to get what you want. To work them until they die,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s very easy to use that model to play someone to whom people are expendable. They\u2019re objects for you to be able to do whatever you want to do. That\u2019s what I think happened with Zeus and his daughter \u2014 he forgot that she\u2019s his daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVance said he and the show\u2019s producers are still discussing if he\u2019ll appear in season three, which is based on The Titan\u2019s Curse, the third book in Riordan\u2019s original five-volume series. Smart, however, spoke to THR from the show\u2019s set in Vancouver, where she\u2019s currently filming. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf you thought season two was amazing \u2014\u00a0to everyone who\u2019s going to be reading this, I think that season three is just bigger and better in every way, shape and form,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is so much action, there is so much storytelling, there is so much emotion, so much conviction. I was with most of the cast over the weekend, and we were just talking about the fact that we have given this our everything, and we will continue to give this our everything. Because from what we\u2019ve seen and heard from season three so far, it\u2019s going to be awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSmart said she couldn\u2019t offer any more specifics on the coming season, but Disney+ stepped in to offer a brief peek at season three, which is set to premiere later this year. Watch it below. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe first two seasons of Percy Jackson and the Olympians stream on Disney+ and Hulu. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains spoilers for \u201cThe Fleece Works Its Magic Too Well,\u201d the season two finale of Percy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[107919,1887,18,117,19,17,95807,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-296715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-courtney-b-vance","9":"tag-disney","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-percy-jackson-and-the-olympians","15":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115935974797434482","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}