The latest book adaptation to wash up on the shore of the 2025 TV schedule is based on the second Percy Jackson And The Olympians novel, Sea of Monsters. The book itself is nearly 20 years old, and it has been (poorly) adapted before as a movie. However, this time around, fans of Rick Riordan’s YA Greek mythology universe are getting things right. And, there’s even one part from the book that the author and some of the cast told us was elevated in the medium of TV.
Rick Riordan Talks About The ‘Revelation' Of Bringing Thalia To Percy Jackson Season 2
When CinemaBlend spoke to the mind behind the Percy Jackson books, Rick Riordan, we got to discuss the inclusion of Thalia Grace’s origin story in Season 2. Here’s what the bestselling author had to say:
Tamara Smart is just so incredible. She’s just brought so much to that role. I think it's fun because even though we see Thalia in more or less the same way in the Sea of Monsters book, it's told in second-person kind-of flashbacks, Annabeth's telling us about these stories. But it's very, very different to see it in first person. You're with them on the screen. Thalia is right there. And it was really a revelation to me to see Tamara take that character and make it her own.
Ever since we learned Percy Jackson and the Olympians would be getting a second season, we’ve been looking forward to all kinds of aspects of Sea of Monsters. But one major one is the introduction of Thalia Grace, who is the daughter of Zeus, who we find out was transformed into a pine tree by Zeus at the border of Camp Half-Blood in order to save her life. (Eagle-eyed fans already may have noticed her presence in the latest trailer for Season 2).
During the new season, Thalia gets a solid introduction to the universe, and as Riordan told us, he found it particularly “amazing to see” it adapted from his book. As he continued:
It feels so much more visceral and so much alive in Season 2 that I think it adds a lot to the story, even though really it's the same story. It's just being told from multiple points of view, and it feels more immediate.
As someone who’s gotten the chance to see the first half of the season, I can definitely tease how much more effective it is to see in TV form because the medium can tell the story from more perspectives. You’ll have to wait a few episodes, but it’s coming!
It Strengthens Grover And Luke’s Storylines This Season
I also spoke about this aspect of the series with some of the cast of Percy Jackson. Here’s what Aryan Simhadri, who plays Grover, told us about the introduction of Thalia:
I love that we get to see what her life on the run is like. That was one of the things I'd always wondered about when I first read the book before I discovered Demigod Diaries. I was like, ‘What did they go through on the road together? How did she get Aegis? How did any of this come to be?’... I think getting to experience that, not only informs so much of what our dynamic is like now and how I talk to Thalia in Season 2 and 3, but it also just like helps flesh out our world.
Charlie Bushnell, who plays Luke, also chimed in. In his words:
I feel like seeing it, it just, it packs a harder punch, you know? Weird analogy, but if you hear about a car crash, you're like, ‘Oh, that sucks. I'm gonna hope they're okay.’ But if you actually see it in front of you’re like ‘Whoa.’ And so I think it’s like the reality of what it was to be like a young demigod on the road having to fend for yourself every day was rough. It was rough out there.
Tamara Smart’s Thalia Grace is just one of the new characters we’ll meet in Season 2 of Percy Jackson. You can stream the first two episodes of the new season now, and look forward to watching new episodes every Wednesday with either a Disney+ subscription or a Hulu subscription.
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