#ep 6: ‘we bring a zebra to vegas’

[grumpylia]

i hate to be a hater but here’s a little yap about ep 6 of the pjo tv show

- i was soooo disappointed in this episode! i literally got bored halfway through LMAO and kept getting distracted which was so upsetting!! because the lotus hotel is one of my favourite chapters of the lightning thief!!

- starting from the beginning; i wish wish wish that we’d gotten the ‘you’re my friend, seaweed brain - anymore stupid questions?’ moment because i just love that moment

- but if they weren’t going to give that moment to us surely they could’ve at least given us?? something??

- instead of just luke’s fan service-y ‘old married couple line’

- i also think the whole the trio things tlt is clarisse thing is just?? underwhelming. the show hasn’t done a very good job at making us really understand the stakes here!!! it feels like they’re just fucking around and i don’t like it!! like they literally missed the deadline!! and that didn’t even feel like a big deal!! that should’ve felt earth shattering!!

- also where was the zebra. where was percy being able to talk to the zebra :(

- i wish also that they’d done more with grover in the start of this ep - they could’ve showed us his character rather than just giving us a massive exposition dump

- the EXPOSITION!! i was fine with it in the first few episodes, bc like the book isn’t exactly perfect with exposition either but it’s actually getting to a point where i think it’s taking me out of the story!

- why why why did they skip the lotus hotel stuff??? omg! i can understand some of the other changes (e.g. waterland) but the lotus stuff would’ve translated soo perfectly to screen!! it would’ve been such a good way to build tension without having the characters ohtroght saying to the audience “this is the lotus hotel. time doesn’t move properly here, and if you’re not careful you can forget who you are.”

- i still can’t believe that they didn’t adapt the book this chapter! it would’ve been so perfectly suited for screen! this tv show also has a tension/stakes problem so it would’ve been a great way to help fix that

- also they’re meant to be TWELVE ! ofc they come across a hotel with infinite food and games and money and love it! the whole point is that across the series we’ll see them grow and become more wary of these things! i could understand why they made the change with medusa, but them knowing what they were walking into here just felt like such a boring choice

- and if nothing else the lotus hotel episode should not be boring!!

- also why are we talking about may castellan🤨the reason it has so much impact in the og series is because you’re putting these pieces together and then it all just hits you

- but here it’s just like…

- and hermes’! i don’t have an issue if they wanted to include hermes’ in this scene - cancel me but i think lmm lowkey ate - but i don’t understand why they would do it in this very expositiony way. and are we not meant to think that hermes’ is neglecting luke too?? at least until som?? if i was writing this and i reallly wanted to include hermes’, i feel like there are sooo many different ways to include him that would’ve read sooo much better. still brainstorming what those ways are, but point still stands

- i did think the taxi scene was really funny tho sue me

i hate to be a hater because i really wanted to love this show! and i really did enjoy some specific moments and episodes! but i just wish they’d done a closer adaptation of the book - i think they’re trying to do way too much way too soon and they need to just let the characters and the story breathe for a bit before trying to really go heavy in with all these really in your face themes and exposition

[rose-reveries]

PJO Episode 6 (spoilers)

The good

1. Ok, I do agree that having 4 pearls instead of 3 makes more sense I guess. Because then they have hope that they’ll actually be bringing Sally back.

2. This was a fun episode, but definitely the farthest from the source material.

3. The “Clarissa is the lightning thief” fake out is NICE. Like sure?? I’m down for it (don’t think there was enough about that tho. Like if we had a hellhound scene in ep 2, we would know someone in camp was the traitor but alas)

The bad

1. Why change it to after the solstice instead of the day before? I like the stakes better when they’ve wasted 5 days in the hotel and have 24 hours to fix everything. We’ve learned the gods are assholes. If they missed the deadline, why tf would Zeus care what they have to say after that deadline. His pride is still gonna be too fucking hurt and he’ll start a war over his broken ego anyway. I don’t know, just not a fan, personally.

2. I’m getting kind of tired of the trio knowing exactly what is happening at all times. There was no whimsy and fun in the casino. There was no Percy slowly figuring out something was wrong. In fact, we don’t even really learn that people in the casino don’t age and everyone there are from different decades. Just not a fan of the trio knowing everything all the time. Like they are 12 year old kids. Let them play for a little bit PLEASE. The plastic credit cards, the sims city game, the deer hunting people game, the nice big hotel room, etc etc.

Edit: 3. WAIT WHY THE RANDOM SATYR??? LIKE JUST TO DRAW GROVER AWAY?? Really?? I don’t know, whole thing could’ve been done better. There is no fun in this episode, only s e r i o u s business.

???

1. Why keep the episode title “We take a Zebra to Vegas” when there is no Zebra…? Not to mention there is no Percy talking to said Zebra. Neither of these points are too important and I can live without them. (I’m sure we’ll learn that Percy can talk to horses another time so it’s no big deal but still.)

2. I don’t know, this episode was fun, right? But like, it’s starting to feel less like TLT, and more like a parallel universe.

Week ?? Of me saying TLT is still the closest adaptation of Percy Jackson we’re ever gonna get and that’s funny. I’ve been pretty open-minded about the TV show and I like it as it’s own thing, but as an adaptation I think as it goes on I’m just starting to feel more meh about it. When our characters tell instead of show, they know everything, etc etc there’s no stakes, there’s no suspense, and it gets stale. It’s the same every episode…

[the-irrelevant-trumpeter]

pjo ep 6 thoughts: bitchy edition because i’m still in a mood

everyone going “i wish they’d played poker face :(” annoys me so much, like they were obviously not going to play poker face. like come on stfu.

(additional note unrelated to the ep itself, but rick riordan responding to people wanting poker face with “normalise bad movie erasure” rubbed me the wrong way sooo much. like i don’t think the movies are good! and i think he’s correct by not wanting any movie callbacks! but you’re not going to do yourself any favours by criticising one of the only scenes that the book fans enjoyed? and also he says it as if he has never written anything that is worth criticising at all and everything he does is perfect. like sir, get off your high horse because the only thing i thought when you said that was “okay so you’re being a dick”. okay thank you.)

lin manuel miranda as hermes is actually very good casting. i said what i said. some of y’all need to chill out.

them knowing about the lotus casino’s effects before going inside didn’t really work for me. like i didn’t mind that same change with medusa because the way they changed that story felt a lot more fresh and interesting. but with this one, where they didn’t change the twists that much at all? idk i think there would have been more suspense if they’d let the characters (and the audience) figure that out as they spent more time in the casino.

i love love love grover so much and one of the changes i like the most is him getting a little bit more attention from the story! but when an episode is only half an hour long, i really don’t think we needed that much of it dedicated to him with that augustus guy. like i don’t care about that rn tbh. and i know the point of augustus is to show the memory loss from the casino, but i feel like that could have been done in a more interesting way (especially if, like i said, they let us figure that out as we went! like let them talk to some people from the 1800s and figure out that time works different and affects their memories.)

why name the episode “we take a zebra to vegas” if you don’t even show us the goddamn zebra? like okay then.

luke’s “old married couple” comment just felt really weird to me. like i enjoy the percabeth content we’ve been getting, but this one felt like they were just trying to spoon-feed us. let their relationship grow and develop over (hopefully) five seasons! we don’t need that at this point in the story come on now.

luke’s “how do you know” reaction to them saying they know who the lightning thief is was hilarious lmao. the boy was sweating.

i don’t think may castellan’s story needed introducing during this episode. like i didn’t mind hermes being there, and i don’t mind them alluding to later plot points a little earlier. but once again, the episode was only half an hour long, and that conversation felt like it was needlessly taking up time that could be better spent somewhere else. if you’re going to be giving us additional lore that we don’t need, then you need to either make the episodes longer or add more of them, because i feel like there was so much more we could have had in the lotus casino.

everyone’s kinda shitting themselves over percy getting four pearls instead of three, but of the plot changes, that was the one that concerned me the least? like they’re just trying to show that poseidon cares about sally, which i don’t mind. and i don’t think they’re going to just let sally escape the underworld easily, because that would be a stupid decision for the writers to make, and although there have been some things i have questioned, i don’t think they’re going to mess that up. i’m guessing they’ll lose one of the pearls when the shoes try to drag them into tartarus. dangling hope then pulling it away yknow. i don’t think the four pearls is something we should be concerned about. (if next week’s ep airs and i was wrong and they do mess it up, feel free to bring this back and laugh in my face, but i’m fairly confident.)

now you know which plot change does confuse me? making the summer solstice already have passed. like that’s a strange decision. and i understand why they’ve done it (trying to raise the stakes even more) but i feel like it was unnecessary and confusing and doesn’t add much. like i’m fine with them making changes, just as long as it brings something new to the table, but i don’t think this does, because the stakes were already high, so it just feels like changing something for the sake of it.

i wanted to say that percy not being able to drive is so relatable to me, but he’s 12 and i’m almost 18 so i feel like he’s got a lot more excuses than me.

justice for george and martha? where were they?

so many people have already said this, but the shows two biggest problems in my eyes are the pacing (why are some bits so rushed and we get no action, and then other bits so slow and clunky. like what’s going on) and also just telling us the information instead of showing us (like you’re getting the chance to use a visual medium to retell this story!!! use it!!!)

the preview for the next ep kinda spoiling the ares fight is so stupid lmaooo like can you wait for the plot twist before you go around showing us that please?

anyway i can’t tell if this episode is weaker than the others or if i just feel that way because i’m in a bad mood, so i’ll get back on that in 3-5 business days.