"The Prophecy Comes True"[1] is the eighth and final episode of the first season of the Disney+ adaptation of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Synopsis[]
Mount Olympus beckons... and Percy must face his greatest battle yet.
Plot[]
In a flashback, Percy is training in sword fighting with Luke. The son of Poseidon is struggling with the training, as Luke reveals that part of warfare is knowing the rules and using them against your enemy.
In the present, Percy challenges Ares to single combat, with the first to draw blood winning, and the war god accepts. Percy mocks Ares by calling Kronos the ringmaster of the plot and saying he saw him in his dreams. Enraged at Percy, Ares proclaims that gods don't dream and tells Percy that he'll be seeing Sally soon. The two charge at each other, and the battle begins. Ares quickly gains the upper hand, disarming Percy and kicking him towards the ocean. Percy then makes good on his promise when they first met and summons a massive wave, which knocks Ares to the ground. As Ares crawls to his sword, Percy slashes the god's thigh, winning the fight. Annabeth and Grover go over to Percy as Ares mockingly congratulates the son of Poseidon and declares that Percy just made an enemy of life before he turns into his Divine Form and vanishes. In Ares' place is the Helm of Darkness, which Annabeth picks up.
Percy notices the cabin where he and his mother were staying the night of the Minotaur attack and leads his companions towards it. Once inside, the trio is greeted by Alecto, and Percy, realizing she was assigned to retrieve the helm, hands it over, telling her to have Hades return his mother. Alecto takes her master's helm and wishes him luck on Olympus. Annabeth and Grover try and fail to talk Percy out of confronting Zeus, but he is adamant about returning the bolt personally. Before he leaves, Annabeth gives him her necklace for good luck. At the Empire State Building, Percy shows the guard the Master Bolt and is granted access to Olympus.
In a flashback, Luke tells Percy how the gods sire mortal children to break the rules they cannot. As Percy asks why the gods are not afraid of them, Luke compares demigods to spiders, which Annabeth is afraid of, despite their size. If the gods perceive a half-blood as a threat, they'll be killed just as easily.
Back on Olympus, Percy confronts Zeus in the Throne Room alone and returns the Master Bolt. As Percy explains why he failed to return the Master Bolt on time, he states Kronos stole it and is plotting against the gods, but Zeus rebuffs him by saying his father is not a threat at the moment and his focus is on his war against Poseidon, dismissing Percy. However, Percy says his family is only loyal to Zeus through fear, and any of them could betray him at any moment. This enrages Zeus enough to smite Percy on the spot, but Poseidon arrives and saves him by surrendering to his brother, begging Zeus to spare his son. After conversing in Ancient Greek, Zeus backs down and agrees to call a council of the gods, both to declare his victory and discuss Kronos, before he vanishes. Poseidon talks with Percy for the first time, and Percy asks if his father and Zeus were talking about Kronos, which he deciphered from the word "patros," which he learned from Sally teaching him Ancient Greek. Percy asks Poseidon if gods can dream, which the god confirms, and asks if he dreams about Sally. Reluctant to answer, Poseidon drops a pearl at Percy's feet, which teleports him near the base of Thalia's Pine Tree.
At Camp Half-Blood, the other campers congratulate Percy, and Annabeth hugs him. He notices Clarisse La Rue in the crowd, but Annabeth urges Percy to do nothing for the moment. Percy speaks with Annabeth and Luke about keeping private and only telling Chiron about Clarisse, as it could start a riot. That night, during the celebrations, Percy and Luke speak in Camp Half-Blood Forest about the prophecy not being fulfilled, and as Percy recites it, he realizes Luke is the Lightning Thief. He was using the Clarisse as a scapegoat, and the plan was for Percy to deliver the Master Bolt to Kronos by being dragged into Tartarus using the winged shoes, but he gave them to Grover instead, which almost got him killed. Luke shows some remorse for what happened, but is undeterred, insisting to Percy that he is not his enemy, the Gods are. Luke then pulls out his sword, Backbiter, and uses it to open a rift between Camp and the outside world. He offers Percy a chance to help him create a renaissance of the Golden Age, but Percy rejects him and draws Riptide. As he tries to help Luke see reason, Percy reveals that he met Hermes, causing Luke to lose his temper. A fight breaks out between the two, and while they are evenly matched, Luke tricks Percy into letting his guard down by feigning injury and quickly subdues him. As Luke prepares to kill the son of Poseidon, Annabeth, who was hiding using her hat, deflects his sword and says that she heard everything. Upon hearing this, Luke runs for the portal and makes his escape.
The next day, Chiron speaks with Percy as he prepares to visit his mother. Chiron states that Luke sees Percy as a potential ally, but the son of Poseidon assures that he will never join him. Soon, Dionysus arrives and tells all those leaving to leave as soon as possible. At Thalia's Pine Tree, Percy finds Annabeth, who reveals she is going to meet up with her father and travel with him. Soon, Grover arrives to reveal he got his Searcher's License. Grover reveals the Council of Cloven Elders thinks Pan is nomadic and that it is a right time and place thing to find him, but Grover thinks he should search the seas. Percy suggests they make a pact to meet up at camp next summer, and the others agree.
In a dream, Percy returns to the cabin at Montauk and calls for his mother, only to be greeted by an illusion and speak with Kronos. The Titan Lord promises he and Percy will see each other in person one day and that the son of Poseidon's survival is essential for his return. Sally Jackson wakes Percy up on his first day of seventh grade, and he says he had dreamed of Kronos again. Percy does not tell his mother what Kronos told him, and they both get ready for the day.
In the mid-credit scene, Gabe Ugliano is on the phone with his lawyer after Sally filed for divorce, complaining about his predicament as well as finding out that Sally changed the locks to the apartment. He then spots a package, addressed to Percy, near the door and opens it, unaware that it contains Medusa's Head, which turns him to stone as soon as he sees it.
Cast[]
Starring[]
- Walker Scobell as Percy Jackson
- Leah Sava Jeffries as Annabeth Chase
- Aryan Simhadri as Grover Underwood
Guest Starring[]
- Megan Mullally as Alecto
- Lance Reddick as Zeus
- Virginia Kull as Sally Jackson
- Timm Sharp as Gabe Ugliano
- Jason Mantzoukas as Dionysus
- Charlie Bushnell as Luke Castellan
- Dior Goodjohn as Clarisse La Rue
- Adam Copeland as Ares
- Toby Stephens as Poseidon
- Glynn Turman as Chiron
Co-Starring[]
- Andrew Alvarez as Chris
- Threnody Tsai as Sarah
- Bola Omodara as Security Guard
- Nick Boraine as Kronos
Differences[]
- Percy, Annabeth, and Grover end up in Montauk rather than Santa Monica.
- Ares doesn't curse Percy when he's defeated.
- Percy encounters Alecto in the Montauk cabin rather than all three Furies witnessing his fight with Ares.
- Percy immediately shows the Elevator Security Guard the Master Bolt rather than arguing with him first.
- Zeus doesn't threaten to strike Percy down if he ever flies again, although Percy wasn't forced to fly home in the TV series due to being teleported to Montauk rather than Santa Monica.
- Zeus acknowledges the possibility of Kronos' return rather than outright denying it.
- Percy confronts Zeus about his behavior and how the god only has the support of his family out of fear.
- Due to Percy missing the deadline and Zeus and Poseidon being at war with each other, Poseidon is forced to officially surrender to Zeus in order to save his son's life rather than the return of the Master Bolt being enough to satisfy Zeus and the end of the matter.
- Zeus implies that he will inform the council of Kronos' impending return rather than banning any discussion of it.
- Percy understands Zeus and Poseidon mentioning Kronos because Sally taught him Ancient Greek rather than Percy's brain being hard-wired for it as a Greek demigod.
- Percy and Poseidon's conversation is shorter, and Poseidon doesn't tell his son that he regrets his existence or that a package will be waiting for him when he gets home. In addition, Poseidon isn't sure when Hades will return Sally rather than telling Percy that she's at home waiting for him.
- Poseidon uses one of his pearls to teleport Percy back to Camp Half-Blood from Olympus rather than Percy returning home first by taxi and then making his own way back to camp. As a result, Percy and Sally's reunion at their apartment is omitted along with Percy's discovery that Gabe has been abusing his mother.
- Percy figures out that Luke is the Lightning Thief on his own rather than Luke revealing himself.
- Unlike in the book, Luke does not explain how he pulled off the theft. He also tries to recruit Percy rather than threatening him from the start and shows some remorse for the danger that he had placed his friends in, Grover in particular.
- Luke fights Percy rather than setting a Pit Scorpion on him.
- Annabeth intervenes in Percy's fight with Luke.
- Luke uses Backbiter to open a doorway out of camp while in the book, he was just described as vanishing, leaving it unclear if he opened a portal or used a power that he got from Hermes.
- Sally files for divorce from Gabe rather than petrifying him with Medusa's Head. Additionally, Gabe inadvertently petrifies himself.
- However, it's possible that Sally or Percy had purposefully left the box outside of the apartment for Gabe to find.
- The package containing Medusa's Head only says that the gods returned it to Percy rather than it being Poseidon specifically.
- While the line of the prophecy about Percy "failing to save what matters most in the end" refers to him being forced to leave his mother in the Underworld with Hades, it can also be about Sally saving herself from Gabe's abuse by turning him into a statue. Due to the manner of Gabe's death and Sally thus not saving herself, this part of the prophecy is left partially unresolved.
Trivia[]
- The title is derived from Chapter Twenty-Two of The Lightning Thief.
- The opening of the episode mirrors Percy's dialogue from the first episode.
- The episode marks the final television appearance of Lance Reddick and his only appearance as Zeus. As a result, the ending includes an epitaph for him reading "In Loving Memory of Lance Reddick."
- Reddick died only about four to six weeks after shooting the episode. According to Dan Schotz, Lance's wife reached out directly with a beautiful note about how excited she is to see him in this role.[2]
- According to Jon Steinberg, the prophecy was deliberately left unresolved in regards to the line that Percy will fail to save what matters most to him, meaning that it may still come true in the future.[2]
- On the decision to send Percy to Olympus past his deadline, Steinberg said "I thought there was something interesting about removing all of Percy's obligation to do the right thing and seeing him confront that. Even absent this sacred responsibility to move forward, there's a different kind of responsibility."[2]
- As Percy arrives back at camp from the quest, a set of Demigod twins/brothers are seen applauding him. It could be hinted that the two are Travis and Connor Stoll.