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The fourth episode of Percy Jackson and the Olympians has dropped on Disney+. What went down?
Episode 4 recap
Warning: Spoilers for Percy Jackson and the Olympians ahead.
The third episode ended with Percy (Walker Scobell) shipping off Medusa's (Jessica Parker Kennedy) head through Hermes Express. The final scene introduces us to the god of the messengers himself, Hermes (Lin-Manuel Miranda), telling the gods offscreen, “You are not going to believe this…”
The fourth episode starts with a flashback of a young Percy at a public school trying to learn how to swim with his mom Sally (Virginia Kull) coaxing him to let go. Sally insists that he needs to learn how to swim to prepare him for when she's no longer there. Percy notices her agitation and reminds her to breathe – something she often says to him.
The scene shifts to Percy alone in the sand dunes and a disembodied voice greets him, “Hello, little hero.” The voice continues, “A forbidden child attracts attention. A forbidden hero? Well… they attract doom.”
Just as the voice tells him, “She is coming,” Percy awakens to the present, on a night train cabin bound for Los Angeles. The previous scenes are in present-day Percy's dreams. Percy asks Annabeth (Leah Jeffries) if she's awake and they end up talking about Thalia.
As Annabeth tells Percy about how Thalia made her earn her affection, as opposed to Luke (Charlie Bushnell) who readily accepted her, Percy compares that to how she is with him. Annabeth replies that maybe that's exactly why.
Percy then questions the gods' treatment of their children – how it seems to be transactional. Annabeth then tells Percy about how she was initially meant to be her mother Athena's gift to her father. And for a while, she was. Until her stepmother came into the picture and had more children with her father. Then she became a problem — which caused her to run away when she was seven years old.
The trio then wake up to reconvene and strategize about how to navigate to the Underworld via LA. They are interrupted when a police officer shows them back to their now destroyed cabin.
The police tell them that a woman (Suzanne Cryer) witnessed what happened and said that she heard children's voices. The same woman asks to speak to the three of them without the police. Grover (Aryan Simhadri) notices a piece of glass stuck to her jacket, and notes that the glass in the cabin was broken from the inside. Either Grover is very observant or he's watched too many crime procedurals.
However, Grover's statement does make the other two realize who the woman is and her ominously shaking pet carrier: Echidna, the mother of all monsters.
She doesn't seem to like the moniker and tells them that they are (at least the demigods Percy and Annabeth) who are the more dangerous creatures. Threatening words coming from such harmless-looking creature like a mom is always more terrifying. Especially when delivered in a calm and reasonable voice.
Echidna's explanation as to why she needed them to be afraid, how fear is essential to the prey is just an introduction for her own child's development. There's nothing personal about her child's impending attack — or the fact that she calls the trio prey. It's just what a good mother does. She says this to the motherless children (and Grover).
Chaos ensues as Echidna's pup gets out of her little bag. It's quite funny how the trio are running for their lives and all the humans see chasing them is a tiny dog. However, the tiny dog (in reality, a little monster) injures Percy with a stinger.
He, Annabeth and Grover escape and are trying to strategize how to get from St. Louis to Los Angeles. Annabeth proposes hunkering down in a sanctuary as they make their plans, presenting The Gateway Arch, which we learn is 630 feet tall and 630 feet across. And apparently, built by one of Athena's children as a monument to her.
A goddess' sanctuary should be safe for the demigods, but Percy finally starts to feel the stinger's poison coursing through his body. Annabeth and Grover take him outside to the fountain as they try to let the water heal him to no avail.
Echidna and her little monster, now known as the Chimera, find them and they scramble to go back inside the arch, then make their way to the top. Annabeth is forced to tell the other two that Echidna told her that Athena is displeased. Annabeth had embarrassed her due to Medusa's head being shipped to Mt. Olympus. And for the gods, embarrassment means withdrawal of sanctuary.
Finding themselves without the gods' and a particular goddess' support, Annabeth decides to fight off the Chimera, a god killer, on her own to give Percy and Grover a chance to escape. The still-injured Percy agrees as he leans against Grover. But not before offering his pen/sword.
As Annabeth reaches for it, he pulls her in and towards Grover's side. Percy takes her place on the other side and closes the door on the two to fight the Chimera by himself.
Percy attempts to fight off the Chimera valiantly, but Echidna helps her child out by creating a hole to prevent Percy from escaping. He almost falls, but manages to hold on to one of the arch's support. Echidna taunts Percy for hot having anyone to help him.
The title comes to play as Percy plunges into the river below just as a funnel of water rises up to cushion his fall. His foot gets stuck in the debris. As he fights to free his foot, a nereid (Jelena Milinkovic) approaches to tell Percy his father has always been there for him and echoes what his mother told him at the beginning of the episode: Just breathe.
Review
For a seemingly short episode, this one has plenty to unpack. During Percy and Annabeth's conversation in the train, he brings up the gods' treatment of their children. How it seems to be transactional (i.e. offering the best of their food to burn) and how a god's love must be earned and not freely given the way he believes a human parent does.
Annabeth's response is a lot like what you would read if you ever go into the depths of some Reddit subs about blended families. It's a little heartbreaking to hear Annabeth refer to herself initially as a gift and then as a problem.
It's no wonder why she's so guarded and a little cynical. She was seven years old when she ran away. She was just a child when she realized that even if she started out as a gift, she no longer is. At least in her stepmother's eyes. It's why she seems to understand how the gods are. “At least they have rules,” she told Percy. Unlike humans whose emotions are governed by arbitrary circumstances.
Annabeth and Percy may be demigods, but outside Camp Half-Blood, they are children. However, Annabeth's reaction to the police officer is quite telling. The first thing she asked when they were accused of damaging their own cabin was, “Are we under arrest?” One might be a little taken aback as to why this was a child's first question.
However, Annabeth isn't just a child of a goddess: she's a black girl who ran away at seven years old. Percy's a white kid who's never really been away from his mother. Annabeth knows what's up, as she repeated that question. And again, it's a little heartbreaking that she knows to ask this.
When the three went inside the arch, Annabeth was explaining how it was a monument of perfection, how her demigod sibling showed their love to their mother Athena. However, Grover sees animals' skeletons and the guns used to kill them. In the Percy Jackson universe, the god of the wild Pan, disappeared long ago. As he was also the protector of nature satyrs called Searchers have made it their mission to find him and stop humans from encroaching on the wild.
For a children's show, this particular scene spotlights a nuanced conversation most adults aren't ready to have: that a monument of greatness for one group can be a monument of cruelty for another. And Annabeth realizes that.
However, the night scenes can use a little bit of work. Of course it's dark when it's night time, especially inside a train, but the show would do well when it comes to lighting the faces of the actors when they speak their dialogue.
The same goes for the underwater scene. Again, it's understandable that it's murky as it is the Mississippi River, but a little Disney magic would help us see just a little bit of the nereid as well as Percy.
Simhadri didn't have much to do in this episode, but he did well with what was given to him, especially the scene in the arch. Scobell and particularly Jeffries shone in this episode. Jeffries does a good job in showing why Annabeth is the way she is. Scobell did particularly well in the scene where Percy chose to sacrifice himself so Annabeth and Grover can go on to complete the quest.
What is particularly interesting is how the show doesn't push Annabeth and Percy into instant friendship. The kind of relationship they have (especially in the books) takes time. It may be spurred on faster because of the life and death situation they find themselves in, but it's not going to be that quick. In a way, they both have to earn each other's friendship.
All in all, the episode felt especially short, most likely because there's so much in it. Sure, it's a little less action packed than the previous one as we were introduced to Medusa and Grover takes a turn with Maia the flying shoes. However, it does feel like we're amping up to meet the rest of the gods.
Ending explained
Different personalities and unresolved questions don't make for a peaceful road trip and the trio is learning that.
As for Percy Jackson, he hears the Nereid's message, “Just breathe.” He's on the verge of panicking, and as he's said earlier in the episode, he's only been a demigod for a few days. A little help from his father — and the Nereid — might just give him the jumpstart on understanding what it means to truly be the son of Poseidon — daddy issues and all.
We're halfway to season one and I'm sure Percy Jackson fans (of the book and this series) are excited to see what's in store in the coming episodes.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians is currently streaming on Disney+.
