Disney dropped the third episode of Percy Jackson on December 26th on both Disney+ and Hulu. Week 3 picks up right where we left off. Percy has been claimed as the son of Poseidon and as such is in a cabin by himself. His lonely living quarters are due to the main three making a pact to stop procreating with humans (a pact that was clearly broken) and now Percy has been sent on his first quest. 

Percy sets off to return Zeus’ master bolt. At least that is the quest that he was sent on — Percy has his own motivation. Percy simply wants to save his mom from Hades. Annabeth is dying to go on a quest and in the second episode we found out that she will be allowed to go with whoever gets a quest of their own. And Grover is the one that told Percy about his mom and Hades. So we have what every trilogy needs: a main trio. 

The Quest

When his quest was approved, Percy was given a prophecy: “You will be betrayed by one you call friend and fail to save what matters most in the end.” It’s shown to the audience when Percy is talking to Grover. But thinking about this from a writing perspective, the betrayal has got to come from a more unexpected source. It can’t possibly be the friend we already got a fake betrayal from. 

“She met a pinecones fate.” Percy is a very sassy 12 year old. Watching him interact with other kids for what seems to be the first time is really entertaining. The first two episodes made it clear that Percy didn’t exactly have a lot of friends. So watching him stick to Grover and kind of push back against Annabeth is interesting.

We met Medusa and killed her all in one episode. Then again, his name is Perseus and he’s on his first quest so I guess we should have seen that coming. By the end of the episode the kids seem to have an understanding of how to get this quest done and how to work together. 

So far the show is paced extremely well. In just a half an hour we are getting a ton of story and character development. Now without book knowledge, I cannot tell if this is a chapter-by-chapter story or if the writing is just finding natural story beats to end on. The episodes could be longer, especially if there is only going to be eight of them, but the storytelling is currently very effective.