Awesome / Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2023)

Season One: The Lightning Thief

I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher

• Percy unknowingly using his powers to give Nancy a push into the fountain.
• The one scene that Sally and Gabe share makes it clear that, unlike in other iterations, Sally is not putting up with Gabe's abuse this time around. She scoffs at the idea of needing his permission to go to Montauk with Percy, threatens to eat his sandwich order if he gives them a hard time on the way out, and forces him to say "please" when he demands peppers on his sandwich.
• Sally tries sideswiping the Minotaur with the car when it catches up to them, and bravely performs a Heroic Sacrifice to buy Percy time to get to safety.
• After losing his mother to the Minotaur, an enraged Percy manages to defeat the monster single-handedly, with no training whatsoever.

I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom

• This episode is pretty much meant to establish just how badass the main trio will be in the series compared to the books:
  • For Percy, during the capture-the-flag game, he manages to hold his own against Clarisse and the two other Ares kids long enough for his team to win the game, without any formal training. He quickly discovers his talent with a sword and managed to outwit Clarisse's lackeys, using her own electric spear against them before snapping it in half in the process. And he accomplishes all these feats without gaining strength from the water.^note In both the books and the film, Percy mostly floundered helplessly before coming in contact with a nearby body of water, which gave him an edge.
    • The fight scene also presents Percy's quick wits pretty well. He had absolutely no idea what he was doing, but quickly figures out that whenever he grapples Clarisse's electric spear, he is able to use the spear against her and her lackeys and steal her momentum. Even Annabeth is mildly impressed.
      Annabeth: Not bad, hero.
    • Percy even displays just how fearless he is when he says that he is not the son of Poseidon, but Sally Jackson, to none other than Dionysus. Percy essentially tells Dionysus to shove his godly heritage where the sun don't shine because of everything he had to go through just to get Poseidon to notice him.
  • For Annabeth, she's been studying Percy from afar, figuring out where his talents and powers lie. She had actually managed to connect the dots enough to discover that his father is Poseidon, just before he's even claimed.
  • For Grover, who's been strictly ordered by both Chiron and Mr. D not to tell Percy that his mother is held captive by Hades, proclaims that he's done lying to Percy, and this time, he meant it! He tells his best friend the truth, despite knowing there is a powerful god standing right next to him giving him a Death Glare.

We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium

• Annabeth having Percy open the window of the bus for them to escape. This leads to the passengers getting in Alecto's way, bumping into her and blocking her as she tries to reach the group. Going off of Annabeth's cocky grin, it's what she was planning for.
  • Annabeth even manages to take out another Fury as they try to attack Percy by throwing her bronze dagger into her chest. It destroys her instantly.
• Medusa's introduction. Alecto has been relentlessly pursuing our heroes all day, but when she realizes that they have ended up on Medusa's turf, she immediately cowers. That is Horrifying the Horror at its finest.
• The team's clever plan to defeat Medusa. Grover distracts her with the flying shoes and Annabeth uses her cap to turn Medusa invisible so no one can look into her eyes. Then Percy cuts off her head.
  • He then proceeds to use it to turn Alecto to stone, getting her off their backs.
• After a whole episode of being an extreme doormat, Grover snaps and gives both Percy and Annabeth a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Out of all the other statues, it's Uncle Ferdinand who Grover notices doesn't look afraid to face his end.
• Percy mailing Medusa's head to Olympus despite Annabeth and Grover's fear that it might anger the gods.
  Annabeth: They'll see this as impertinent!
  Percy: I am impertinent.
• Hermes' Early-Bird Cameo at the end, casually bringing Medusa's head to Olympus. The god of travelers and tricksters can't help but smirk at Percy's impertinence.

I Plunge to My Death

• Even while poisoned, Percy takes Annabeth's place to face off the Chimera himself, trusting his friends to continue the quest because he believes he's dead anyway.
  • Adding that he feels responsible for angering Annabeth's mother, yet Athena blames her daughter for embarrassing her instead of him? No way! He mailed Medusa's head; the Chimera is his fight.
• Poseidon summoning a large water tunnel to save his son's life.
  • And Echidna, just before leaving Percy to his doom, taunts him that she believes Poseidon doesn't care about his son enough to provide him a chance to live. Poseidon, in response, immediately proves the Mother of Monsters wrong with his own godly form of fatherly love.

A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers

• Grover reveals that he's a surprisingly decent detective during his conversation with Ares. He had pretty much used his Guile Hero antics to make Ares, of all gods, let slip that he knows more about the Lightning Thief than he's letting on. If Zeus had sent other gods to look for his Master Bolt and believes that Percy is the Lightning Thief, Ares was likely ordered by Zeus to retrieve the Bolt from Percy... and yet Ares knows Percy isn't the thief. Both Ares and Grover also know that Percy wasn't on Olympus during the Winter Solstice, so Ares may have already found out who the Lightning Thief is beforehand and knows that someone is framing Percy. Ares' face has Oh, Crap! written all over it.
  Ares: And we're so sure that [Athena]'s a genius and I am not?
  Grover: Totally!
  Ares: It's like people only see what they wanna see and ignore anything at all that doesn't fit the story they like to tell themselves.
  Grover: Exactly! Like you being the one to find the Lightning Thief and not [Athena].
  [Beat]
  Ares: ...What did you mean by that?
  Grover: [casually] By what?
  Ares: "Found the thief". We both know [Percy] didn't steal the bolt.
  Grover: Yeah... But Zeus thinks he did, which is kinda all that matters, right?
  Ares: Shut up.
  [Grover grins cleverly]
• When Ares believes Percy will fail his quest, Percy has none of it and pulls off an epic Shut Up, Hannibal! moment:
  Percy: We're not gonna fail.
  Ares: Don't worry. Your dad had plenty of kids he stopped caring about once he lost interest. You'll have lots of company.
  Percy: We're not gonna fail, and I'm getting pretty tired of you saying it. You think you know who I am, but you don't. And if you aren't careful... you're gonna find out.

We Take a Zebra to Vegas

• At the end of the episode, the nereid in Santa Monica reveals to Percy that the Summer Solstice has elapsed and the civil war is already starting. Even when he's ordered by Poseidon to return to camp for his own safety, Percy refuses to abandon his quest and still wants to find the Master Bolt and stop the war before it ensues, and believes that a far more sinister scheme is at work that not even Poseidon knows about. The nereid, enlightened by Percy's bravery and willfulness, gifts him four pearls to escape the Underworld for his friends and his mother.
  • The nereid implies that since the elapse, Poseidon has been trying to postpone the war for as long as he can. It's likely a sign that he's been stalling time for his son to complete his seemingly-now-hopeless quest if he chooses to disobey his orders.
• While many consider this to be the weakest episode thus far, there's still a big moment for book fans: inside the casino, hidden deeply behind all the background noise (specifically the scene with Grover and Augustus around the 12:30 runtime mark), the voice of a little boy can be heard crying out for someone named Bianca.

We Find Out the Truth, Sort Of

• Percy and Annabeth dealing with Procrustes by trapping him in his own waterbed and demanding where his entrance to the Underworld is.
• In the Underworld, the trio managing to outsmart Cerberus with Annabeth calming the three-headed Rottweiler and then tricking the dog into leaping at Percy to get herself over the gate.
• At the end of the episode, Percy and his friends manage to escape the Underworld, where they are confronted by Ares, the god who has turned and conspired with Kronos into starting a war between Zeus and Poseidon. Before we end of a Cliffhanger, we get a look at a look at an unafraid Percy unsheathing his sword, Riptide, ready to fight the god of war himself. All the while, we hear Poseidon's voiceover, claiming he'll be right by his son's side when his ready to face his destiny.

The Prophecy Comes True

• Percy vs. Ares. A twelve-year-old, barely trained demigod challenges the War God himself to single combat. When it seems Ares had the upper hand, he ends up kicking Percy, a son of Poseidon, into tide pools, which augments Percy's abilities. Empowered by the water, Percy summons a large tidal wave at Ares and manages to draw first blood (or ichor in Ares' case), resulting him in losing the battle.
• Percy traveling to Olympus to return Zeus' Bolt. When Percy tries to warn Zeus that Kronos is returning, Zeus brushes it off like he can handle fighting his malevolent father again. Percy fearlessly calls his uncle out for not seeing how much of a Big, Screwed-Up Family the Olympians truly are (as Ares had turned against them to help Kronos start a war). Zeus, being the arrogant Ungrateful Bastard he is, is about to blow Percy to bits — only for Poseidon to intervene and surrender by default in order to convince Zeus to spare his son.
• In contrast to what happened in the book, Percy deduces that Luke was the true Lightning Thief and Kronos' accomplice instead of Clarisse; bonus points for holding his own against his more experienced fallen friend in the ensuing sword fight.

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