Note: This story contains spoilers from “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” Season 2, Episode 8.
“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” did feature a major twist in its Season 2 finale, but not necessarily the one book readers were expecting. It was a deviation, and according to executive producer Craig Silverstein, a twist the team “held off” on for a while.
In the final episode of the season, the Golden Fleece finally returns to Camp Half-Blood to save Thalia’s tree and, as Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries) and Grover (Aryan Simhadri) piece together, its powers bring Thalia Grace (Tamara Smart) back to life. But it turns out her transformation into a tree did not go quite as the kids anticipated.
In the final minutes of the episode, Chiron (Glynn Turman) reveals — and viewers are treated to the events in the form of a flashback scene — that Zeus (Courtney B. Vance) didn’t actually turn Thalia into the tree that protects the camp because she was mortally wounded. That’s the story of the books, and that’s the story every camper has been told.
What really happened is that Zeus himself struck down the Furies that attacked Thalia and her friends, but not before they informed her of the Great Prophecy. When Zeus explains it in more detail and warns Thalia that she must be ready to fight for the gods, she flatly refuses. She also tries to gather her found family and leave.
Zeus warns her not to turn her back on him and, as she tells her father off, turns Thalia into a tree as punishment. Chiron was watching from a distance and was instructed to lie to everyone about what happened.
“It was a twist we talked about, held off, held at arm’s length for a while,” Silverstein explained to TheWrap. “And then, it kind of came back around and presented itself as, really, the way to get not just a big moment of surprise in for people who remembered fondly a surprise of just Thalia coming back, but really, to activate the stakes of where this saga goes in the next season.”
“That having another forbidden child of prophecy on the map, and having that be something that could mean the end of the world, you really want that person to have reasons that you, and that Percy understands!” he continued. “And this; having Zeus ground her, punish her, rather than just spare her life as everyone had been told, aligns her in that direction. And it makes that question a real, real question.”
So, what does this mean for the kids, particularly Annabeth and Grover? Both were there the night this all happened, and immediately call out Chiron for having lied to them.
“One way to think about Chiron is the way that I think he’s presented himself to the kids, is he is the ultimate rule follower,” Silverstein said. “And yet, there’s this conflict before he’s asked to lie for Olympus. And maybe he has to be the ultimate rule follower because people know that his father was Kronos, and he wants to show how aligned with Olympus that he is.”
“But this tension that he has to train these kids, who he bonds with and cares for, but he has to train them to risk their lives and die, fighting monsters,” he continued. “There’s a number of of conflicts, I think, that weigh on Chiron. And here this has moved him that, yes, he’s kept this lie, but he keeps it no longer. So he’s sort of made a choice here to err on the side of the kids, rather than the gods.”
The executive producer added that Thalia already had a chip on her shoulder about the gods, which made the exchange a bit easier to set up, but he felt Zeus didn’t come to Half-Blood Hill intending to punish Thalia. Tensions just rose in the moment.
“You hate to have to go there with your children,” Courtney B. Vance, who took over the role of Zeus this season, agreed. “You hope and pray that we can have discussions, and we can agree to disagree and move on. But when she pressed me and said, ‘I’m not doing what you want to do, and I don’t want to be your daughter anymore,’ I mean, those are words that you know you can’t take back.”
So, what does it all mean for Season 3? Silverstein can’t give spoilers. But he did tease that fans will learn more about Thalia’s past, even pre-Luke.
“The nature of what she thought about Zeus and Olympus before running into Luke is something we actually do explore in season three, and that might be a surprise for people,” he teased. “But Luke really is the one who she meets, the first demigod who she meets, who knows about this world and is able to kind of fan the flame.”
“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” Seasons 1-2 are now streaming on Disney+. Season 3 is already in production.
