‘Percy Jackson’ Star Walker Scobell Unpacks Season 2 Finale: From That Twist to What It Means for Season 3

Note: This story contains spoilers from “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” Season 2, Episode 8.

“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” Season 2 is now officially in the books, but that season finale deviated in a key spot from the actual book it’s based on. Series star Walker Scobell was pretty excited when he read the script revealing that twist though.

All season long, it’s been foreshadowed that Tamara Smart’s Thalia might return (though book readers already knew she would). In episodes 6 and 7, it became explicit; after the kids recovered the Golden Fleece, Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries), being the wise girl she is, pieced together that it might have the power to bring Thalia back. And in the finale, Thalia Grace indeed returned to the land of the living.

But, with her return came a massive reveal from Chiron (Glynn Turman). It turns out, Zeus (Courtney B. Vance) didn’t transform his daughter into a tree because she was mortally wounded. He did it as a form of punishment, after Thalia refused to fight for him against Kronos.

It’s one of the biggest deviations from the books thus far, and according to Scobell, “it just makes sense.” It also adds some layers of setup to Season 3.

You can read TheWrap’s full discussion with Walker Scobell below. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

TheWrap: Do you feel like there’s any kind of pressure being relieved here, being able to talk about the finale? Because you still have all these Season 3 spoilers that you have to keep.

Scobell: Yes, I definitely feel a good amount of pressure being lifted off my shoulders. But at the same time, it’s like you said, Season 3 is an entirely — but you know what? I guess I’m lucky, because — or, not lucky, but Season 3, what we’re doing is basically the book. Because it’s written almost perfectly for an adaptation.

For instance, there’s some changes [in Season 2], like the finale is a little bit different than the finale in the books. You had to really up to stakes. And I feel like for Season 3, the stakes are already so high that we don’t really have to change anything.

I do want to talk about the finale twist here in a second, but I want to start at the beginning of this episode. You have this really sweet scene with Sally, the wonderful Virginia Kull. You have tears in your eyes, it’s a beautiful moment, take me through filming that day.

It’s interesting, when I read it originally I didn’t imagine it like that. I imagined it more of like, ‘No, you’re staying here,’ like taking charge, you know? And then I got there, and it’s interesting how different things can be read from so many different people. I got there, and it was so different than what I imagined, and I didn’t even realize it, and so it kind of dropped me into it, made me more focused, in a way, because I didn’t know what to expect. And I feel like I do my best when I’m kind of taken off guard. I know that sounds weird, but I don’t know how to explain it.

I’m curious then, was it directing notes to play it more emotionally? Or was it just what happened between you and Virginia in the moment?

It was a little bit of both! It’s kind of a sad scene, even by itself, even when I do it the way where it’s like more taking charge. It’s a sad scene for Virginia, sad scene for Sally, because she’s realizing how much Percy’s grown up. And I feel like, as the day went on, it kind of just got bigger and bigger and bigger, and we just kind of started to lean into it. I really like what happened.

I want to ask about your actual “take charge” moment, you get to give a really big rallying speech at camp. How did you find what you wanted to do in that particular scene?

So that was also difficult for me to film, just because, as the season went on, I feel like they started to write more for me, which is amazing for me. But at the same time, it was like, I was 16 when we filmed that, you know? And Percy’s supposed to be 13 years old.

So I think, what was difficult about that is trying to — because if you just kind of go by the stage directions and the words on the page, it is a very huge speech to get everyone riled up. And I think it still is that, but I think it was finding little moments in there. I don’t remember exactly what I did, but I just remember focusing on these really little parts of the scene and trying not to make it like a total ‘I’m leading you all into battle’ and more like, ‘Guys, there’s a problem, let’s all fight it together.’

Just kind of saving that big moment, leading everyone, for book five.

Let’s talk about the battle itself. Aryan [Simhadri] warned me at the beginning of the season that we do get a little more violent in Season 2, and the way that Charlie [Bushnell] just beats on your nose in that battle, I had to turn away a little bit. I’m told that was your idea, that you pitched it being that violent in that moment.

Totally. So, originally the fight was just kind of like, passing by, he disarms me, and I go down. But in my mind, it’s like, he stabs me in the fight before, and the next time he sees me, it’s not going to be this kind of, ‘Oh, disarm him, and now I’m going to kill him.’ We’re going to go at it no matter what. And he’s like, going for the throat, he’s going to kill me.

What was interesting about that fight is, Charlie, in a fight prior to that one, uses the same move to disarm me. Stop my sword, pulling it, around and then grabbing my wrist, and then hitting the sword out of it. And so, a lot of what Percy knows, fighting-wise, is from Luke. All the rules of the world, single combat, all these little things. That little detail is like, he’s still learning from Luke in that way.

And so, I think one of the big ways that that scene sets up Season 3 is that’s another thing that Percy learns. Percy disarms him, and you can kind of see on my face for a second, he thinks he won. And then Luke immediately starts punching and going for the kill and the blood. So I think that kind of sets up Percy for Season 3 — no spoilers but you know.

Yes. It’s just so visceral, and it’s funny, because earlier in the season, Percy does say Luke is gone. ‘Luke is Team Kronos all the way, Luke is gone.’ But even part of him still seemed a little bit surprised that he was this vicious in a battle.

Oh yeah! Especially on the day, it was so fun watching Charlie focus up, like, really get into character. And I didn’t even realize, because I’m going back and forth between school, and so a lot of the shots where he’s moving through the crowd and fighting, you can really see the difference between Percy and Luke’s power.

Percy is more — he’s trying to, like, almost sneak past, in a way. He’s fighting them, but he’s trying to get to Luke, he’s trying to get by. And Percy’s still rolling on the ground and getting hurt, but Luke is just plowing a line straight through to Percy. And it just shows, I guess, the difference in skill and power. Percy is just still not there.

There is this moment that Percy and Annabeth have during the fight. On Circe’s island, Percy says “if it comes down between you and Olympus, Annabeth, I would burn it all down.” So then we have this moment in this final battle where Annabeth takes an arrow to the chest, but she tells him she’s fine, get the fleece to the tree, finish the quest. And Percy does!

I’m curious, in your opinion, do you think that Percy would have made the same choice if Annabeth didn’t seem as OK as she did in that moment? If she was in more danger, would the choice have been different?

That’s a really good question. In a way, he doesn’t finish the quest, you know what I mean? He kind of picks it up, stabs it, throws it to Clarisse. And I think he leaves her with Grover, and in a way, it’s like he knows that she’s safe with him. I think, if the circumstances were that Annabeth was alone on the ground with an arrow, and it was just him, he wouldn’t have moved. I think he would have stayed with her.

But I think, in that moment, it was a decision. He either stays with her, and you know, whether or not she’s going to be completely fine, and she’s with Grover, she has other people around her, this will decide the fate of the camp. And I think, since Annabeth has this kind of vision of Thalia coming back to life, I think Percy, in a way, is still fighting for her by finishing the quest.

He’s potentially bringing Thalia back. So, I think it’s very difficult for him. I guess, yes, he is leaving her and finishing the quest, but in a way, he’s doing it for her. Saving the tree, saving the camp and potentially bringing Thalia back. So, I don’t know. It’s a tricky situation.

It is, so let’s talk about Thalia coming back, because we have to talk about this twist. We find out that Thalia was not mortally wounded and turned into a tree. She was turned into a tree by Zeus as punishment. This is a huge twist. Tell me your reaction when you first read this.

Oh, I was — I mean, it just makes sense. I think it’s those kind of twists that I love, and I think it’s one of those things that as a book reader, I see that and I’m not like, ‘Oh, that changes everything!’ Because it does change everything, but it’s not one of those things that is vital to the story. It just makes it a lot — I’m looking for a different word than dramatic, but it kind of just ramps it up for Season 3.

And also my first thought was like, ‘OK, massive scene with Thalia and Zeus.’ We hadn’t cast Courtney B. Vance at that point, so I guess I was a little bit surprised. I don’t know, I was thinking about Lance whole time when I was reading it.

I actually talked to Courtney B. Vance, and he said that on his first day on set, he took a moment to honor Lance Reddick, because he was incredible. And of course, they were friends. What did that mean to you when Courtney took the time to do that?

I heard all about that. I wasn’t there on that day, but that is just so — he’s such a standup guy, that is really such an amazing thing for him to do. And to kind of, not just take on the role, but to take on the legacy that Lance left behind for him in Zeus, and kind of carry that on, is amazing. And I think, for Tamara Smart who plays Thalia, she knew Lance very well, and she seemed very happy with Courtney. And that made me really happy to see.

Good. Well, I will leave you with this; you did an interview on the carpet at the Season 2 premiere, and you mentioned that you had filmed the junkyard scene. People freaked out just from you saying the words “junkyard scene.” So, without giving me any kind of spoilers for Season 3, just give me a few words, no context, that you think fans will freak out over.

Ooh. ‘Death,’ I guess that’s got to be one of them (laughs).

I think, ‘suspension?’ It’s a random word, but there’s a lot of scenes in Season 3 so far that, even as an actor, normally when I’m watching the show, I’m like, ‘Wow, they really built this moment up and it didn’t feel like that on the day,’ you know? They can make it look like that. But when we were filming these scenes, there was this weird sense of, I guess, dread. Dread for what was about to happen, and, I don’t know, it was a really weird feeling. I’ve never experienced something like that.

And the third word, I’m going to go ‘real.’ They don’t try to lean away from what makes it so — I don’t want to spoil what it is, I mean, you know, but — they don’t want to lean away from what makes it so upsetting. They really just let it play out. I’m just excited for you guys to see it.

I mean, we still got another one to go. Another death, I mean. But I guess we’ll see how that works out.

“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” Seasons 1-2 are now streaming on Disney+. Season 3 is already in production.

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