We have finally arrived at the absolute best moment of the Disney+ fantasy adventure series, Percy Jackson & the Olympians Season 2, and by that, I mean the last few minutes, when the significant revelations are made, and then the rolling of the credits signals that the terribly uninteresting show is finally over. With the demigod hero Percy Jackson and his friends having finally retrieved the Golden Fleece, which has magical healing powers, it is now time to return to Camp Half-Blood and save it from destruction. Season 2 episode 8 ends with twists that had been easy to predict from the very get-go, and an expected development that is not only scary for the characters but for us viewers as well, for it confirms that a 3rd season of the series is on the horizon.
Spoiler Alert
What is the current situation at Camp Half-Blood?
Season 2 episode 8 begins with Sally driving the kids back towards Camp Half-Blood while she is briefed on all that has happened so far. The woman naturally notices Percy being caught up in some serious thought, which he talks about a little later. Before that, as the car draws close to camp, they have to come to a sudden halt, as the road ahead is blocked by the Pegasus that Percy had freed and befriended in the previous episode. As Clarisse had flown away from Luke’s cruise ship on this very Pegasus, its presence on the road near the camp suggests that Clarisse must have gotten off and reached her destination already. Percy gets out of the car to literally go have a word with the Pegasus, and learns that there are already far too many monsters outside camp, because of which Clarisse could not ride the beast to the Thalia Tree, and had instead continued towards her destination on foot.
This makes the teenagers get out of the car immediately and enter the forest around Camp Half-Blood, and Sally also wants to accompany them. But Percy insists that she stay back, for he does not want her to get hurt or be killed again, as the memory of the Centaur crushing her to death from the beginning of season 1 still haunts the boy. Sally respects her son’s request, and she also provides comfort to Percy’s troubled mind, for the protagonist is worried about something specific. Till now, everyone had believed that the hero mentioned in the Great Prophecy was Percy, but Annabeth had recently started to believe that it is actually Thalia. At present, Percy feels confused about how he and Thalia seem to be like two sides of the same coin, one representing good and the other representing evil, respectively. This suggests that both he and Thalia can actually become the hero of the Great Prophecy, with their individual actions deciding who it would ultimately be.
Sally helps calm Percy down and encourages him to deal with the more crucial matter at hand, which is to help save the camp. Back inside Camp Half-Blood, monsters and giants sent by Kronos have been invading the defense systems on a daily basis and wreaking havoc at the place, requiring the demigod students to fight them off. But with the chance of the students soon getting overpowered by the enemies if more of the latter end up coming there, the students try to seek help from the Activities Director, Tantalus. However, Tantalus still remains fixated on his chariot-racing tournament, which he wants to be restarted to keep the morale of the students high, despite the camp literally falling apart because of the repeated attacks of the enemies. He is seen ordering some of the kids around to repair the chariots and the racing track, while others try to convince him to take some defensive action.
But Tantalus is convinced that whatever is happening at camp is beyond his or any of the students’ control, and he also firmly believes that it is nothing compared to the real sieges that he saw during his time. While delivering this message, he carelessly picks up a chicken leg and immediately realizes that the gods have lifted the curse that had prevented him from touching any food item no matter how hungry he was. Tantalus is overjoyed by this development, but before he can taste any food, after centuries of waiting, a ball of fire thrown by one of the giants who had just sneaked into the camp takes him out. Thus, there is no longer any director left at Camp Half-Blood, and Dionysus is promoted to the position despite him having absolutely no interest in it.
As Percy, Tyson, Annabeth, and Grover enter camp and try to get to the Thalia Tree, they are arrested by the members of the student council for being deserters who had flouted the rules set by Tantalus. They are taken to Dionysus, who refuses to take anything seriously, even when he is told that Kronos has returned. The god of wine does not even believe this report, stating that there are no Titans attacking the camp yet, and Percy has to rally the students to stand up for themselves with an encouraging speech. It is only after he instills the students with unity and a sense of urgency that an army of demigods representing the good side can be formed. They soon join the forces that were already at the front gate of the camp, protecting it from any giant or evil demigod who managed to bypass the safety shield and enter the place.
Who are the traitors inside camp?
Soon, many more giants and enemies arrive outside the camp, in trucks and a convoy of cars, and among this group are also the core members of the supporters of Kronos, namely Luke and Alison. As Percy and his friends spot the group from a distance, they also try to find out what is being discussed by Luke and his comrades, using Tyson’s supreme hearing. It is by eavesdropping on this discussion that the protagonist learns how Luke has placed a group of traitors inside camp, who have been doing his bidding till now. This seems to be the last desperate attempt by Luke to get hold of the Golden Fleece.
After leaving her Pegasus behind, Clarisse had run towards camp, which means that she still has to make it through the forest to reach her real destination, which is the Thalia Tree. During her desperate run through the forest, someone shoots an arrow at Clarisse, and it turns out to be Katie, an old demigod friend of hers. Katie and another fellow, Chris, have been leading a small group of students who have been fighting off the enemy intruders at camp. Chris immediately calls off Katie, who quickly apologizes for having attacked Clarisse, but the latter does not want to stop and have a chat, since she will be losing time and getting late in saving the Thalia Tree. Chris offers to help her reach the tree safely, and soon this group starts to escort her through the forest. Soon afterwards, Chris tells Clarisse that he suspects Katie is up to something evil, as she had shot a menacing arrow at her.
But this turns out to be just a distraction that Chris had thought up, a pretense to kill Katie, who had been the only one in the group with honest intentions. The rest of them, including Chris, were actually traitors all along, who had been secretly working for Kronos and Luke. But given how long they got to carry out some conspiracy internally, and how little damage was actually done to Camp Half-Blood, it must be said that Chris and his team did an awfully poor job. The whole twist about the traitors and them turning against the heroes in the most crucial moment is just to add some drama to the otherwise terribly superficial plot, and so its effect is limited to the moment when Chris snatches away the Golden Fleece from Clarisse after having injured her gravely.
There is another reason for the introduction of this plot point, though: to harp on the need for friends, which has been drudgingly repeated way too many times throughout the season. Chris boasts that Clarisse’s biggest mistake was to think she had any friends, and this is the exact moment when Annabeth and Grover heroically enter the scene on a chariot and drive the villainous Chris away. They not only prove that Clarisse has some genuine friends, but are also instrumental in taking back the Golden Fleece and helping Clarisse finish her task by taking the magical object to the Thalia Tree.
Can Camp Half-Blood be saved?
The entire scene then shifts to the front gates of Camp Half-Blood, where both sides gather to carry out their respective objectives. Luke starts opening up the portal, in a sense, as he grants entry to the giants, just like Annabeth had once done to let Tyson get past the magical barrier. On the other side, Percy and his new army of demigod students also emerge onto the scene to stop Luke and his followers. A fierce battle ensues, with about fifty members on each side, all wearing decorative armor and carrying fancy weapons. At one point, Luke goes into full villain mode and tries to kill Percy, but the protagonist is saved by his trustworthy brother, Tyson, who fights Luke off using Poseidon’s trident, which he somehow gets access to.
With Luke sidelined, Percy now gets the chance to fulfil his and his friends’ real objective, which is to heal the Thalia Tree using the Golden Fleece and to not only repair the magical protection the tree provides to the camp but also bring Thalia back to her human form. Taking the Fleece and placing it on the tree is not possible, as Alison and her followers have started attacking its stem. Therefore, Percy drives a spear through the Golden Fleece and hands it over to Clarisse so that she can drive it into the trunk and ensure that the healing object gets to work its magic all over the tree. This does heal the tree enough to turn it into a human Thalia, and it is reported that Camp Half-Blood has ultimately been saved. As soon as the Thalia Tree and its protective shield recovered, the Kronies, as the demigod followers of Kronos are now called, had immediately been forced to back out, with Luke having disappeared. This means that although Camp Half-Blood and the central characters have survived the attack, Luke and his followers still live on and will definitely return for more action in the future.
Does Tyson die in the end?
Thalia’s recovery had also immediately led to Percy losing consciousness, as the girl too went through the same ordeal. This further seems to suggest that both of them could be the hero in the Great Prophecy, and their choices and decisions will ultimately decide who between them will be hailed as the hero. As Percy faints and stays that way for two whole days, he has a dream in which his father, Poseidon, appears to him. The god of the seas confirms that a terrible war is soon about to grip the mortal and divine realms because of the return of Kronos. Therefore, he states that a master craftsman like Tyson is needed by the gods so that the boy can work at the divine forge and make weapons for them to be used in the war. Tyson readily agrees to this plan, after thanking his father and the other gods for having brought him close to Percy, as he had always prayed for a genuine friend. Thus, Tyson leaves the mortal world immediately and is no longer seen in the episode. The fact that he is not actually dead but has simply joined the gods at their forge means that he will definitely appear once again in the future, possibly to save his dear friend and brother Percy once again.
What had actually happened to Thalia?
With things drawing to a close, Chiron, who is reinstated as the camp director, reveals what had actually happened to Thalia six years ago, when she, Luke, and Annabeth had arrived at camp. It had been told to everyone that Thalia had fought against the Furies to ensure that her friends reached the camp safely and that she had fallen in battle, following which her father, Zeus, had honored her bravery by turning her into a tree with protective powers. But the truth was very different from this, as the Furies had never battled against Thalia and had simply told her certain things to wedge a gap between her and Zeus, for they had been sent by Hades to warn Thalia about something. Just like how Kronos is now obsessed about the Great Prophecy and specifically about using the hero mentioned in the prophecy to destroy Olympus, Zeus too had been obsessed about the same prophecy six years ago.
Zeus believed that his daughter, Thalia, was the hero mentioned in the prophecy, and since the prophecy stated that the hero could either save or destroy Olympus, the king of the gods wanted to use her to defeat Kronos once and for all. He merely wanted to use her as a weapon in his war against Kronos, and as the Furies told the teenager so, they were immediately killed by Zeus’ thunderstrike. Zeus himself then appeared to make a deal with his daughter, and when Thalia refused to be used as a weapon by him, and also refused to give him the respect of a father, he could not contain his wrath. It was then that he turned Thalia into a tree using a curse, simply to punish her for the disobedience and irreverence she had shown towards him, and also to ensure that she could not become the hero and fulfill the Great Prophecy.
Which side will Thalia fight for?
At the end of season 2, Thalia finally wakes up and has a reunion with Annabeth, although she is confused and then angry about the absence of Luke. At the very end of his narration of the past, Chiron had revealed that he had kept all of this a secret from the protagonists because he was unsure whether Percy was actually working for Kronos. But he had now gotten his answer, both because of Percy’s brave fight against the villains, and also because he had learned that Thalia was actually the champion of Kronos. This was possibly why Thalia had refused to work for her father, as she had been destined to be the champion of Kronos. Or, perhaps her falling out with her father had convinced Kronos to choose her as his champion. Therefore, the king of the Titans had made the elaborate plan to retrieve the Golden Fleece and have it used to help his champion recover. The ending of season 2 confirms that Thalia is actually going to fight for Kronos, and so she will reunite with Luke soon. This will give the show enough of a chance to drudge up Annabeth’s miserable situation of having to fight against the very individuals who had been like a brother and sister to her earlier.
Is there a post-credits scene?
Percy Jackson & the Olympians season 2 does have a mid-credits scene, which is more of a very short teaser for season 3, along with the confirmation that the next season is going to be released very soon, this very year. The teaser only shows Percy and Annabeth at some dance party, either their prom or graduation dance at Camp Half-Blood. Despite their awkward and shy faces, the best friends dance together to the tune of “Until I Found You,” which suggests that they will be in a romantic relationship or at least try to express their developing romantic feelings for each other. Season 2 episode 8 also has a short post-credits scene, which takes us back to Circe’s spa in the Sea of Monsters, where she puts up statues of Percy and Annabeth. Despite having done nothing to help the protagonist and his friend while crossing the Sirens, and in fact having done everything to stop them, Circe takes full credit for their safe passage, using their success story to sell her training course. Circe’s wink in the end suggests that she does the same thing for each of the heroes who successfully manage to sail past the Sirens, pretending like her course has helped them in achieving the feat, while that is never the case.
