On Sunday, New York Comic Con panel-goers got to see some exclusive clips from Disney+’s upcoming series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, based on Rick Riordan’s iconic book series that’s managed to win the hearts of millions of readers thanks to its exciting take on the world of Greek mythology.
Percy Jackson follows the story of 12-year-old modern demigod Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) who isn’t necessarily finding his place in the mortal world. However, after being thrown into a celestial mystery involving Greek gods and monsters, divine magic, and Zeus’ (Lance Reddick) missing thunderbolt, Percy sets off on an adventure of a lifetime with his friends, Grover (Aryan Simhadri) and Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries), to find it and restore order to Olympus.
In order to get a better sense of what the show plans to present, being an adaptation of Rick Riordan’s first work in the series The Lightning Thief, fans got treated with clips showcasing some of the most iconic moments featuring the cast of gods, demigods, and monsters in action.
Check out what we saw and how it connects to Riordan’s sequel works down below!
Percy Jackson’s Backstory and Present
The first clip featured Percy Jackson’s backstory as a curious child who became sadly rejected by his classmates with Walker Scobell narrating and putting his own spin on the first few lines from Chapter One of The Lightning Thief.
From the first few moments, the series makes itself known that it’s deeply rooted within the lore of Percy Jackson: one shot has a teacher climbing to a rooftop to find a young Percy staring off to another building only to find nothing there as the teacher guides Percy back.
However, a few seconds later, a black Pegasus trots in the distance, which may likely be connected to Blackjack, the Pegasus that Percy befriends after escaping Kronos’ ship in Sea of Monsters. Although, it may just be likely that this really is Blackjack, but we’ll have to wait and see!
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Continuing on, Percy introduces his only friend, Grover, who’s a gentle pacifist even though Percy seems to innately be the opposite. On the cafeteria table, a card with a minotaur in underpants gets placed, which feels like a comically-placed foretelling of what’s to come in Percy’s journey.
During a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Percy has a flashback to when he and his mom Sally (Virginia Kull) talked about how he got his name as Perseus similarly to all the other Greek heroes. Percy also has this childlike dream to fight monsters, though it seemed more like a fantasy than a reality at the time.
This gets interrupted as Percy continues to get bullied by Nancy but is assisted by Mr. Brunner aka Chiron-in-disguise (Glynn Turman). Helping Percy, Brunner decides to give Percy his pen, which fans will quickly pick up as Riptide, as Brunner tells Percy that his time will come.
While the rest of the clip treads the same line with Percy and Grover outside at the fountain, it’s interesting to see how the show is already incorporating one of the more notable elements of the Percy Jackson franchise in the form of Blackjack. Should future episodes follow in the same way, fans could expect to see hints at the show’s future events that play off of the books.
The Minotaur’s Hunt
Speaking about a minotaur in underwear, the second clip expanded on Percy, Grover, and Sally heading for Camp Half-Blood in a rampant thunderstorm with the brutish Minotaur on their tail.
In this scene, Grover explains the idea of the Mist, how it affects demigods and mortals, and how he’s supposed to embody the role of Percy’s protector. He reveals his secret of being a satyr-in-training and in a briefly funny moment, he also mentions his real age of being 24.
Meanwhile, Percy has this inner conflict brewing within him: his mother, in addition to Grover, has been keeping all these secrets from him for so long, empowering him with rage to find the truth. However, before Sally can explain anything, the Minotaur catches up to their car.
Sally rams her car into the Minotaur, though it doesn’t work as it strikes back, pinning its horn into the dashboard. As an oncoming truck shines ahead, Sally makes the quickly thought decision to punt the creature into the truck, pinning it down behind them. Though they make it out of the scuffle, the trio unfortunately crash into the woods below, yet ever so close to Camp Half-Blood.
This clip serves as a lore-builder for Percy’s journey in learning his identity and role within the greater mythological world while intensifying the stakes that come with being accused of an Olympian high crime. Fans can expect this scene to balance between the fun, the flow, and the action as things begin to take a turn for Percy and company.
Percy Vs. Clarissa In Capture The Flag
As a final tidbit, fans got one more exclusive clip on behalf of Rick and Becky Riordan, who made a thunderous appearance at the end of the panel. In the clip, fans got to finally go to Camp Half-Blood with an intense round of Capture the Flag!
The clip begins with Luke (Charlie Bushnell), the adept son of Hermes, and his friend clashing with the other team, swords and all. As Luke’s friend wonders what Percy is going to do, Luke hopes that Percy will grow into who he inevitably will become. Although, it doesn’t seem likely as a bored Percy sits around and does the private thing that every stranded survivalist does.
However, his break gets interrupted as Clarissa (Dior Goodjohn) and her teammates find Percy as Clarissa teases him about not knowing who or what he really is much to Percy’s hesitation. Suddenly, Clarissa attacks Percy with her iconic spear as Percy tries to fight his way out of this unwinnable situation, making their way down near a lake.
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Though, Clarissa mentions that she doesn’t want to maim or kill Percy, perhaps out of arrogance for her own status in camp. She manages to pin Percy to the ground, but Percy gets the upper hand, breaking Clarissa’s spear using his shield. Not only does this enrage Clarissa, but she decides to go all-out on him, but not before Luke’s team manages to capture the flag and win it for their team.
Meanwhile, Annabeth has been watching it all, hiding in plain sight thanks to her handy invisibility cap. She helps Percy up, but after seeing his wound, she decides to push Percy in the water. While Percy’s mad at first, he discovers his true nature as the son of Poseidon as the water heals his open wound.
It’s really fun seeing this moment as most fans would love to experience all the fun things in Camp Half-Blood and bringing this entire sequence to a show will completely satisfy those fans with Walker and Leah’s sweet chemistry as well as the testing of the tonal waters between Walker, Dior, and Charlie.
With all of these exciting clips shown, it’s no wonder that Percy Jackson will be a mainstay for Disney+ even though the show hasn’t been released yet. Should the stars align, there may be hope that this show will get the continuation it really does deserve.
Be sure to look out for our interviews with showrunners and executive producers Jon Steinberg and Dan Shotz, director James Bobin, production designer Dan Hennah, and costume designer Tish Monaghan throughout the next few weeks!
Percy Jackson and the Olympians debuts December 20 on Disney+ with a two-episode premiere, followed by new episodes weekly.
