The Disney+ fantasy adventure series, Percy Jackson & The Olympians, is nearing the end of its 2nd season, as the protagonist and his friends are finally close to getting hold of the magical Golden Fleece. But before they can think about taking the item back to Camp Half-Blood and healing the Thalia Tree with it to restore the magical defense system, Percy and Clarisse must first get hold of the thing, and also save Annabeth from their enemies along the way. Season 2 episode 7 follows the protagonist and his group as they embark on this journey aboard Luke’s cruise ship, where the Golden Fleece is currently being held by the supporters of Kronos.
Spoiler Alert
Why do Percy and Clarisse disagree about their next move?
At the end of the previous episode, Percy, Grover, and Clarisse had been helped by Tyson, who defeated Polyphemus and cleared the way for the heroes to follow Luke, who had taken both the Golden Fleece and also Annabeth with him. Tyson had reached the island with the help of the resourceful Hippocampi, and the others then used the same creatures to leave the island and head to Luke’s cruise ship. Now, in episode 7, the ship has harbored at Port Jefferson in New York State, where the authorities are terribly irked at such a gigantic vessel blocking the waterways for smaller boats. As the captain of the cruise ship, Aidan, is being threatened by the authorities, he simply pretends to take the matter seriously, for he is in cahoots with the evil demigods supporting Kronos, and therefore his plan is clearly to keep the ship harbored as long as possible.
Around the same time, Percy and the others reach the port as well, and quickly think of how to go about executing their next plan. Making use of Tyson’s ability to mimic voices, they lure Aidan into a room and take him hostage. After a round of interrogation, they learn that the Golden Fleece is currently in Luke’s room, while Annabeth is being held inside a freezer room, both aboard the cruise ship. Percy is unsurprisingly only bothered about helping his friends out, which is why he comes up with a perfect plan to reach the freezer room and rescue Annabeth. He wants to use the keycard obtained from Aidan, which can be used to enter the restricted levels of the ship and therefore the freezer room. However, Clarisse is totally against this plan, for she once again prioritizes the Golden Fleece above everything else.
Clarisse is quick to remind Percy how he had simply handed over the crucial Fleece to Luke in the previous episode, and then states that there is now no chance that she will let the object slip out of her hands again. While Percy thinks only of his friend, Clarisse is concerned about the safety of the numerous demigod students back at camp, all of whom will be killed by Kronos’ supporters if the defense system is not repaired. Therefore, she wants the keycard so that she can use it to sneak into Luke’s room and steal back the Golden Fleece. When Percy tells her that he can possibly do the same after saving Annabeth, using the invisibility cap that he has with him right now, Clarisse only requests him to give her the cap so that she can retrieve the Fleece without any problems. Ultimately, Clarisse does exactly what Percy had done to her in the previous episode—she fools him into believing that she is ready to stick to his plan, and then snatches the keycard from him at a moment when he is distracted. Just like throughout the season, Percy and Clarisse have a disagreement and go their separate ways to explore the cruise ship, which is naturally very entertaining to Aidan, who grows more confident that his side will definitely triumph over these teenagers.
Where is Annabeth now?
Back inside the cruise ship, Annabeth lies on a bed in the freezer room, which is mostly used to store spare supplies. Although Luke had very caringly carried her to this place and tucked her under the magical Golden Fleece to ensure that her fatal injuries were healed, Annabeth is still in a hostile environment, after all. This is confirmed by the fact that her hands and legs have been bound to the bedposts so that she cannot escape the room and launch her own attempts to retrieve the Fleece. Once Annabeth has almost entirely recovered, one of the demigods fetches the Fleece and carefully lays it on the sarcophagus containing Kronos’ body.
The other important demigod in the group, Alison Simms, is evidently irked at the fact that Luke has been wasting time healing an enemy with the Golden Fleece instead of immediately having used the item to revive their fallen lord, Kronos. Therefore, she clearly instructs one of her followers to get the Fleece off Annabeth’s body and bring it to Luke’s room so that it can be put to better use. Annabeth eventually wakes up to the whispers of Percy, who manages to sneak into the freezer room, but their conversation is cut short by the emergence of Luke. It is only because of the invisibility cap that Percy manages to stay hidden and avoid danger for now.
But before leaving the room, Percy uses his invisibility to distract Luke’s two guards, essentially leaving Luke alone with Annabeth in the room. This seems to be part of a quick strategy planned by the two friends, for Annabeth starts to try and get Luke back onto the good side by asking him to work on Thalia’s behalf instead of trying to revive the evil Kronos. Annabeth recalls the moment the news of Thalia’s death had been revealed to them, many years back, and questions whether the elders had been honest about it. Neither she nor Luke had been given the chance to see Thalia’s body, despite the two of them having been so close to the girl, and so it could very well be that she is still alive in some sense, and the elders had chosen to keep this a secret for some odd reason. Therefore, Annabeth states, there might still be a chance to recover Thalia using the Golden Fleece and bring her back to her original self.
The plan does seem to work, as Luke starts to believe in the possibility of bringing Thalia back, and he obviously prioritizes it over everything else. Annabeth also pushes him to question why Kronos had never told him about this possibility, suggesting that the King of the Titans had only been manipulating Luke and his friends into supporting his cause. As he carries these beliefs and the question in his mind, Luke eventually asks Kronos why he had been kept in the dark about Thalia’s fate. But in true villainous fashion, Kronos refuses to provide any answers and instead uses his mind-control abilities to take over Luke and orders him to join the fight at Camp Half-Blood, with the sole intention of killing Percy Jackson.
Does Percy get hold of the Golden Fleece?
After leaving the freezer room, Percy had used the invisibility cap to sneak into Luke’s room next, with the plan of retrieving the Golden Fleece. He immediately notices the golden glow coming from Kronos’ sarcophagus, which signifies that the King of the Titans attempts to establish a telekinetic connection with the boy, just like he had done with his other demigod followers. Kronos does start talking to Percy, claiming that he had always known the hero would definitely return to him and join him in destroying Olympus. Percy does not pay much heed to these words and is about to pull away the Golden Fleece from the sarcophagus when Kronos proposes a deal.
Kronos says that he knows exactly what the Great Prophecy is, and will share every detail about it with Percy if the boy leaves the Fleece on the sarcophagus and lets the King of the Titans return to his original form. Percy and Annabeth had not heard the entire Great Prophecy, and whatever little they knew of it was based on the watered-down version that they had been told by others. The knowledge of the Great Prophecy is believed to be enough for Percy to give up the Golden Fleece and betray Camp Half-Blood, or at least Kronos feels so. After all, every hero is supposed to have a weakness for absolute knowledge and understanding of the world, and Kronos tries to take advantage of this heroic desire.
However, Percy ultimately does not fall into the trap, as he wholeheartedly believes that Kronos is lying to him and will never tell him about the prophecy. Therefore, he chooses to get hold of the Golden Fleece instead, outright rejecting the deal that the King of the Titans had offered. He has to face Luke before he can leave the room, though, and a swordfight between the two follows. Despite managing to get away at first, Percy is once again caught up by Luke when he uses the elevator to get down to the ship’s dock. Luke desperately plunges his sword between the doors of the elevator in a desperate attempt to stop the protagonist from getting away, and this leads to a grave stab wound on Percy’s chest. Although Percy manages to heal the wound using the Golden Fleece for the time being, the injury might end up having a more significant effect in the season finale.
How does Clarisse redeem herself?
Clarisse had sneaked into the armory after getting on the cruise ship, but before she could move ahead with her plan, she had to hide, as some of the demigod warriors had come into the room. It was through the discussion among these demigods that she learned that Alison had now ordered everyone to gather at the freezer room in order to kill the enemy, Annabeth, after she was instructed to do so by Kronos himself. Despite having been dedicated to the cause of retrieving the Golden Fleece and taking it back to camp over everything else, Clarisse now decides to change her plan and instead go to the freezer room to protect Annabeth.
Clarisse valiantly fights off all the enemies at the freezer room and does rescue Annabeth, although she believes that she will now have to retrieve the Golden Fleece, as she feels Percy is too incompetent to have done so. But as she and Annabeth make it back to the deck of the ship, Percy meets them at the spot, and a Pegasus he had earlier rescued on the ship now comes in handy. Ultimately, Percy asks Clarisse to return to camp with the Golden Fleece on the Pegasus, and although Clarisse now refuses to leave her friends behind inside enemy territory, she finally agrees to do so. In this manner, the prophecy that the Orion of Delphi had made for Clarisse also comes true, as the teenager does reach the target she has set for herself but ultimately flies home alone without her friends, since only one person can sit on the Pegasus’ back.
Did Percy and his friends return to camp?
Meanwhile, Grover and Tyson had been given the important task of securing a safe means of travel for the teenagers so that they could return to Camp Half-Blood as soon as the Fleece was secured. Despite their best efforts, Grover and Tyson just could not come up with any proper means of escape until they decided to rely on their very last resort—to call up Percy and Tyson’s mother, Sally, and seek help from her. Thus, Sally immediately drives her car to Port Jefferson and waits for the kids so that she can take them back to camp. After seeing off Clarisse and safely escaping the cruise ship, Percy and Annabeth rush into Sally’s car, and the group finally leaves the place.
During the ride, Annabeth is sure that using the Golden Fleece on the Thalia Tree might just bring back Thalia to her human form, for Zeus and Chiron might have lied to everyone about the teenager’s body having been completely destroyed in the battle against the Furies. But Percy is quite nervous about the theory, although he does not say anything to the others just yet. This is because Percy is sure that he had seen Thalia’s face behind Kronos’ hood in his nightmares, and therefore he is confident that it is Thalia who must have either turned into Kronos or given up all her powers and even her physical body in order to revive the King of the Titans. But around this same time, Kronos’ army starts attacking Camp Half-Blood, and a hypnotized Luke also leaves the ship to join the army. Percy Jackson & The Olympians season 2 gears up for next week’s finale in this manner, and a grand fight between the two sides is promised in the post-credits teaser as well.
