Review: The first two episodes of ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ are wholesome fantasy fun

Rick Riordan’s book series Percy Jackson and the Olympians has had a pretty poor track record regarding screen adaptations. So when Disney decided to have another go at it, it made sure to let everyone know the author would be involved every step of the way this time around.

The new Percy Jackson and the Olympians‘ Disney Plus exclusive television show has waved its fidelity to the source material as a bright, shiny flag, speaking to fans’ most ardent desires to finally see their favorite books done justice in a new format. Riordan served as co-creator alongside Black Sails‘ Jonathan Steinberg, while Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries, and Aryan Simhadri were brought on board as the titular Percy and his Camp Half-Blood allies, Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood.

The first season adapts the first volume of the book series, The Lightning Thief, in which Percy finds out he’s a demigod and his father is a Greek god. Although his mother managed to conceal his identity as a child, now that he’s growing up the mythological world has started to seep into his reality, and monsters, who hunt half-bloods for a living, have begun coming after him. The action really starts when he’s taken to a special camp for demigods where he will be protected by creatures of good.

James Bobin directs the first couple of episodes with real authority and charm. The story is familiar — the call to action in Percy’s hero journey essentially mirrors those of Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, or Narnia. A struggling kid, who has a hard time fitting in, discovers that what makes him different is actually the source of something much greater. It’s not a new formula, but at its most essential, a tried-and-true one that works just as well in Percy Jackson as it has in the past. Bobin does a great job of bringing out Percy’s inner anxieties, and making them the driving force of the episode, as we’re left feeling just as confused and lost as he is.

The hero’s (human) mother, who is brought to life by NOS4A2′s Virginia Kull, is a fascinating character. As grounding and nurturing as she is to Percy, there are so many unresolved issues that keep her from being the mother she needs to be, and at points, it is her son who must parent her. Together, Kull and Scobell are dynamite, and the family dynamic stands out as the most interesting and intricate conflict in the show.

The protagonist is set up as a bridge between the audience and the story world, and everything he doesn’t quite understand just yet, we don’t either. In that sense, just like Percy tries to process the titanic amount of information coming at him from all sides and all characters, it can be hard to absorb it all for the viewer too.

Although understandable and justifiable from a world-building point of view, the repeated exposition is a real problem in the initial episodes of the show. Just as we’re getting acquainted with the workflow at Camp Half-Blood — and the several new faces that inhabit it — we also get hit with Annabeth as well as her sibling’s back story, the Gods’ own domestic dramas, and the set-up for an epic quest coming in future episodes. As a result, the expository dialogue in the first episodes of Percy Jackson and the Olympians is often wordy, over-explanatory, and needlessly long, and can easily take the viewer out of the experience. It’s not necessarily bad to have this much “tell” in a teleplay, just as long as the amount of “show” balances it out — here, albeit by a small margin, it never quite does. Which brings us to the action.

There are more than a few incredible set pieces just in the first two episodes alone. Even if they’re very evidently made-for-TV, instead of the movie-level production fantasy shows have come to require, this ultimately forms part of Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ charm; it’s comfortable being a TV series, and doesn’t try to be anything else. For instance, production design overpowers things like CGI as an undeniable highlight of the new Disney Plus series, which is a refreshing change in this day and age. The physical sets are incredibly evocative, and do justice to the $12 to 15 million per episode budget, as do the visual effects, which convincingly turn regular actors into half-animal mythological creatures, and Megan Mullally into the gargoyle-like monster known as a Furie.

Despite some limitations in writing and consequently acting (even if the cast still does its best job at effectively navigating such a fantastical, novel world), Percy Jackson and the Olympians is fully secure in its tone and identity. Unlike its cinematic counterparts, this series not only respects the young age of its principal cast of characters, but also celebrates it. This is a show about children coming into their own, making all the mistakes that come with having little experience of the world, and sharing all the wonderment that comes from going out and really seeing it for the first time. It’s as light as it is emotional and unabashedly vulnerable.

Scobell, who at 13 was just a year older than his character when the show was filmed, wonderfully portrayed Percy’s insecurities, really driving the point home that at his core, he’s just a kid missing his mom, and wishing he could have a dad in his life. Additionally, this show is especially heartwarming to watch because of its history — the books were written by Riordan as an escape and force of empowerment for his neurodivergent son, who lives with ADHD and Dyslexia. The at-times explicit parallels between the way Percy experiences the world as a demi-god, and the particularities of being a neurodivergent child are at the heart of the story, which is ultimately a tale about how limitless your world becomes when you find your place and your purpose.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians might not be perfect, but it is necessary and so damn welcome.