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Title: Percy Jackson and the Olympians S1.E08 “The Prophecy Comes True”
Released: 2024

Hero of the Week: Zeus
Riordan Readalong: The Lightning Thief, Chapters 19 to 22

Previously: “We Find Out the Truth, Sort Of”

Last week, I asked y’all to choose the hottest god from the episode: Hades (15%), Ares (19%), or Poseidon (65%). The people have spoken: Percy’s dad has got it going on!

Demigod Diaries

Upon returning from the Underworld, Percy (Walker Scobell) wakes up outside of the Montauk cabin and is met by Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries) and Grover (Aryan Simhadri) — and a battle-ready Ares (Adam Copeland). Percy challenges Ares to single combat: if Percy wins, he gets Zeus’ master bolt and Hades’ Helm of Darkness. (If Ares wins… well, Percy dies and the whole world is even more doomed.) Percy uses his home tide advantage to get the jump on Ares, who disappears and drops the helm in defeat.

Percy begins returning his uncles’ toys to their rightful owners. Alecto (Megan Mullally) collects the helm for her master, but Percy personally goes to Mount Olympus atop the Empire State Building to deliver the master bolt — and a warning of Kronos’ comeback. Zeus (Lance Reddick) is unimpressed by the insolent forbidden child who missed his deadline, and he’s still determined to wage war. As Zeus is about to literally smite his nephew with lightning, he’s stopped by Poseidon (Toby Stephens), who immediately surrenders in exchange for Percy’s life. With a crushing victory in hand, Zeus skedaddles, leaving father and son to their heart-to-heart, until Poseidon sends Percy back to camp.

At Camp Half-Blood, Percy receives a hero’s welcome (and the world’s longest hug from Annabeth). There’s still a traitor among them, and an unfulfilled line of the Oracle’s prophecy: “You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend.” Kronos’ demigod accomplice is revealed to be Luke (Charlie Bushnell), whose bitterness towards his father extends to all of the gods — and he’s recruiting for his cause. Percy stays loyal to the gods, reluctantly fighting against his friend and getting assisted by Annabeth, but Luke escapes by tearing through the camp’s magical defenses with his sword Backbiter.

With the end of summer, our trio go their separate ways and vow to meet back next year at Camp Half-Blood. Annabeth’s going home to see her dad, and newly licensed searcher Grover will be scouring the seas in his search for Pan. Percy goes back to the Montauk cabin, finally reuniting with Sally (Virginia Kull) — but it’s actually a Kronos nightmare??? Fortunately, Sally is back in the mortal world, and she’s keeping a dream journal for Percy’s visits from Grandpa (lol). She’s also divorcing Gabe (Timm Sharp), who gets locked out of the apartment and Medusa’d when he opens Percy’s package for the gods that got returned to sender.

Hero of the Week

Attempted childslaughter might not be heroic, but I’m picking Zeus anyway as an excuse to sing the praises of Lance Reddick, who passed away in March 2023. It’s a shame that we’ll never get to see this Zeus cross paths with Percy again. Even though we only get one scene with Lance, he really brought a gravitas befitting the king of the gods. He will be so missed.

Overheard Olympians

Annabeth: “What are you doing?”


Percy: “Living up to my end of the bargain. Tell Hades I expect him to do the same. Please.”

Sally didn’t just teach Percy ancient Greek; she taught him MANNERS.

Annabeth: “Zeus will never let you leave Olympus alive.”


Percy: “I’m done running from monsters. This is too important. I have to try.”

Percy Jackson, you will always be a hero!

Grover: “Just for clarity, how sure are we you couldn’t explain just everything in an email?”

Grover Underwood says “This meeting could have been an email”!

Percy: “Ares said gods don’t dream.”


Poseidon: “Ares is a moron. Perhaps you noticed?”

But we’re so sure that Athena’s a genius, and Ares, no owl, is not?

Mr. D: “Wait, Percy?”


Percy: “Yes?”


Mr. D: “No. I mean, that’s your name?”


Percy: “Yes.”


Mr. D: “Are you sure? ‘Cause I’m 90% sure it’s Peter — “


Percy: “Percy. Percy Jackson.”


Mr. D: “I don’t think so.”


Percy: “I’m pretty sure I know my own name.”


Mr. D: “You know what? I don’t actually care.”

Never change, Mr. D.

Riordan Readalong

Note: This section discusses the show as a book adaptation. Click here to skip to the next section.

The Lightning Thief, Chapters 19 to 22, with the episode named after Chapter 22.

Some spoiler-minimal series reader observations:

  • Like Percy’s sword, the Helm of Darkness also has an ordinary Mist form as a ski cap, but the show only gives us the badass ornate helmet.

  • Speaking of the sword: IT REMAINS UNNAMED. Even Luke’s has a name now!

  • Speaking of Luke’s sword: Backbiter is made of celestial bronze on one side and tempered steel on the other, so it works on both immortals and mortals — which is a giant red flag, since demigods aren’t supposed to harm mortals.

  • Book Ares expositions that the master bolt ends up in the backpack because it’s actually the bolt’s sheath, and he magically tinkered so that the bolt would only reappear when the backpack is in the Underworld. (I had totally forgotten this part.)

  • Ares is also the one who brings up dreams first in the book, not Percy. The book also hints more at Ares unknowingly acting under Kronos’ control than the show.

  • Book Percy recalls Luke’s training during the battle against Ares, so the flashbacks are a nice way to bring that into the show, as well as reminding viewers about Luke before his betrayal.

  • The show changes the location of where the heroes return from the Underworld and Percy battles Ares from Santa Monica, probably for efficiency. We don’t get the mortal media circus around Percy and Sally’s disappearance (other than that one news clip with Gabe), and Percy doesn’t have to take a cross-country flight out of necessity.

  • Book Olympus is a much more bustling place than what we saw. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to return and see more of the sights!

  • I had wondered why the show made Percy miss the quest deadline, and it looks like it was to insert a Zeus/Poseidon confrontation and give dear ol’ dad a heroic moment.

  • LOLOLOL the campers actually made burial shrouds while the trio was on their quest, so burning the shrouds is part of the return celebration in the book. So metal.

  • The finale really glosses over how no Searcher has returned in two thousand years. Meanwhile, Show Grover’s just like, “See you next summer!!!”

  • Unlike in the show, Book Luke definitely wants to kill Percy lol. Luke uses a scorpion to immobilize Percy (which might have been too similar to the Echidna poision), and Annabeth does not come to his rescue in the nick of time.

  • Referring to Kronos as Grandpa would make more sense in the book, where words have power and there’s more of an effort to avoid using his name.

  • Minor as it is in the grand scheme, Gabe’s fate is definitely one of the bigger departures from the book, in which he was hitting Sally (!!!) so Percy encourages her to let him open the Medusa box, and Sally makes enough money selling the Gabe statue to pay for a down payment on a new apartment and her first semester at NYU. (Just realizing how this book actually has a bit of that Roald Dahl edge of “WOW, this is in a children’s book?!??“)

Greek Chorus

  • I totally missed that the beach house that Percy keeps going back to is the cabin in Montauk, lol. Maybe because it was dark the first time we were there!!!

  • But seriously, when I rewatched with the lights on while writing this recap, there were long stints of not being able to see anything. (Even with lights off, I had to make sure all my devices were dimmed or turned off; very normal TV watching experience in 2024!)

  • If the last war between the gods kicked off World War II, that means Percy failing his quest resulted in *gestures at everything*.

  • Great small detail with Ares bleeding golden ichor!

  • The show must have been saving the special effects budget for that first look of Mount Olympus lol.

  • Zeus and Poseidon speaking ancient Greek!

  • I get that Sally and Poseidon have a star-crossed romance, but let’s be real — he’s had many Sallys in his lifetime!

  • Also hard to dispute Poseidon’s assessment of Ares when he practically threw Percy into the sea during their fight.

  • One great thing about Luke as a villain is that he makes very valid points about the gods being shitty parents!

  • When Percy tells Luke that he’s acting out of character because of Kronos’ influence: my guy, you’ve never known Luke before Kronos!

  • Why did Annabeth end up following Luke and Percy if she said she was going to watch Clarisse? If she had suspicions about Luke, we certainly didn’t get to see. Also, Luke’s betrayal might have had more weight if he and Annabeth hadn’t only interacted onscreen for the first time earlier this episode.

  • Even if Luke isn’t a threat to Percy, everyone seems very unbothered by the demigod radical on the loose?? Obvs he’ll be dealt with in the future (THAT WE BETTER GET), but no one’s concerned right now? (They definitely care in the book.)

  • Other Meredith commented last week that the show seems hard to follow without book context, and that felt EXTREMELY true for the finale. A lot of the resolutions felt like they needed one more scene beforehand.

  • Case in point: Annabeth’s going home to her dad… why? The last time she talked about him, she felt unwanted by him and his new family. What’s changed? (Even if it was just, like, facing her own mortality made her want to spend time with him while she can, we actually need to be shown or told that. Unless that’s what her regret in Asphodel is supposed to convey? But that is A STRETCH, considering the show never went back to it.)

  • Annabeth freaking out about Disney World, though — that was good. (Don’t worry, AB; no one dies at Disney Parks. Or maybe they do.)

  • For how much time we’ve spent this season watching the trio slowly travel across the country, Percy’s just bouncing back and forth between Montauk and Manhattan this episode. (I know those locations are not that far away, but the sudden disregard for travel logistics reminds me of the later seasons of Game of Thrones.)

  • So we don’t actually see the real Sally reunion?? As in, the conclusion to Percy’s season-long quest to save his mother? And it’s just a time-jump Kronos dream? COOL.

  • Speaking of Kronos: is that the visual that we’re going with? This is how he presents himself in Percy’s nightmares? Because it’s is a bit underwhelming.

  • Even though he’s the worst, I can’t blame Gabe for being surprised that Sally’s divorcing him, since it does feel out of nowhere based on their zero interaction since the first episode. (In the book, Sally only puts up with Gabe because his stench masks Percy from monsters lol.)

  • My quibbles for this episode may be many, but I’m already in Percy withdrawal lololol. I won’t be reading ahead of the books for the first series, but thankfully, there’s PLENTY of Riordanverse material to occupy my time — including the behind-the-scenes documentary, A Hero’s Journey: The Making of Percy Jackson and the Olympians!

Percy Poll

I’m keeping it real simple for this episode. (Although fear not if you love polls, because this will not be the last one of the season!)

What do you think of the season finale?

  • Yay! (67%)
  • Meh (28%)
  • Nay! (6%)
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What did y’all think of this episode? Share your thoughts in the comments! And stay tuned for the Season 1 wrap-up post later this week!

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Mandy (she/her) lives in Edmonton, AB. When she’s not raiding the library for YA books, she enjoys eating ice cream (esp. in cold weather), learning fancy pole dance tricks, and stanning BTS. Mandy has been writing for FYA since 2012, and she oversaw all things FYA Book Club from 2013 to 2023.