Percy Jackson and the Olympians bosses will draw on their "Black Sails days" for season 2

The first season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians wrapped up this week with a bang, as young Percy (Walker Scobell) clashed with the God of War, Ares (Adam Copeland), mouthed off to Zeus (Lance Reddick), met his father Poseidon (Toby Stephens), was betrayed by his friend Luke (Charlie Bushnell) and, at long last, was reunited with his mother Sally (Virginia Kull) after she was released from the underworld. It was a lot, and Percy Jackson managed to spin it all into a compelling 41 minutes of television.

Now begins the long wait for season 2. As of this writing, Percy Jackson and the Olympians hasn't technically been renewed by Disney, but I'm going to remain optimistic that the announcement is coming. After all, they've been developing this series closely with author Rick Riordan for quite some time. One of Disney's publishing imprints, Disney Hyperion, is also responsible for publishing all of Riordan's many books set in the Percy Jackson universe, so there's potential for different branches of Disney's business to benefit from the show doing well. You have to think they'll be a little more committed to this thing than they were to, say, Willow, which was unceremoniously canceled and pulled off Disney+ after its first season.

At the very least, showrunners Jonathan E. Steinberg and Dan Shotz are already thinking ahead to season 2. They recently did an interview with The Hollywood Reporter where they discussed the show's season 1 finale, working with the late great Lance Reddick, how their work on the Starz pirate drama Black Sails will come into play in Percy Jackson and the Olympians season 2, and more. To start, the duo got into how the cascading ending of "The Prophecy Comes True" was constructed to leave audiences breathless.

“If you have a number of scenes that all feel like they’re an ending, it has to be endings to different things, and each has to feed into the next,” Steinberg explained. “They all feel like they’re making a slightly different comment, because there are all of these different motives and priorities.”

"The journey to find friends and find peers and find connection is one of them. That gets its ending in the Annabeth and Grover moment. The need to save his mother gets its moment. The need to find his father — I think each one is a moment to feel as though [the story has] reached its completion. And then you’re just seasoning to taste so it doesn’t feel like the show’s overstaying its welcome."

Dan Shotz also teased how the last-minute appearance of a certain Titan set up the show's future. "The Kronos part of it is also launching the much bigger mythology. It’s been teased throughout the whole season, but that being toward the very end sets up much more to come within the larger mythology and within what it means for Percy personally. So that was also another piece of this, to look forward."

One of the key moments of the finale was Percy's reunion with his mother Sally. Shotz and Steinberg went into detail about how important it was to pull off the mother-son relationship between actors Kull and Scobell, since they had very little actual screen time together during the season.

"You know you’re going have this really limited amount of time between them. You have to achieve this sense of investment and chemistry between the mother and son in a way that’s going to carry through the season," Steinberg said. "So there was a tremendous amount of attention and energy that went into figuring out what those scenes: How do you create this sense of warmth that’s just everywhere without feeling like you’re trying too hard? Having said that, you can do that till the cows come home, but if you don’t have two actors who can sell it, and who are so charming and warm and engaging, it isn’t gonna get you anywhere. The two of them are stars. You see Walker tap her on the wrong shoulder and play games with her, and in three seconds, you get this relationship and you love them."

"We had to really make sure we landed this," Shotz added. "You had to understand that the stakes of the entire season were in that first episode, how important this relationship is. They really built it a lot off screen. They just bonded right away. Virginia is a mother, Walker is so fun and silly, and they were so playful with each other. I remember a day where he was shooting water guns at her. It was that kind of dynamic, and they just were laughing the entire time."

Percy Jackson showrunners aren't making plans to recast Zeus yet

Another key moment in the finale revolved around Zeus, the king of the gods played by Lance Reddick. Reddick sadly passed away last year, which leaves his appearance on Percy Jackson and the Olympians as one of his final performances. He was only in the episode for a few minutes, but absolutely commanded the screen during that time. "The Prophecy Comes True" ended with a dedication to Reddick.

"That was obviously, as you can imagine, very difficult for all of us — for the kids, especially Walker, who worked with him for those days," Shotz said. "But for all of us, losing Lance was heartbreaking. At the same time, we also feel so fortunate to have spent that time with him. And he so delivered, and he loved it. He was so proud of being a part of this and playing that role. He took it so seriously — you can see in the performance how seriously he took it. But he also was kind and fun and such a good scene partner to Walker. It was a really a special experience with him. We miss him a lot."

Looking to Percy Jackson's future, the loss of Reddick raises the obvious question of how the show will handle future appearances from Zeus. Will the role be recast? "We haven’t really talked much about it," said Steinberg. "Zeus doesn’t play a massive role in a lot of the books. We’ll have to deal with it as it comes. I think for right now, we’re just very excited for people to see his performance and to honor him any way that we can."

Percy Jackson and the Olympians showrunners will draw from their Black Sails roots for season 2

There are a lot of good things about Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but something I particularly enjoyed was seeing the influence of Steinberg and Shotz on the production. Steinberg was one of the showrunners of Black Sails and Shotz was a writer and producer. Composer Bear McCreary worked on both Percy Jackson and Black Sails, and a few cast members like Toby Stephens and Jessica Parker Kennedy (Medusa) made the leap from one series to the other. There was even a pretty slick training flashback between Luke and Percy in the Percy Jackson finale that recalled a pivotal sequence from the penultimate episode of Black Sails.

If Percy Jackson and the Olympians gets a second season, it will be adapting Riordan's book The Sea of Monsters. As the name implies, there'll be sailing. It sounds like Shotz and Steinberg are ready for it. "Lots of boats. We’re going back to our Black Sails days," teased Shotz.

Steinberg took things a step further, saying there were things they learned working on Black Sails which they would "for sure" be able to apply to Percy Jackson season 2, particularly when it comes to shooting scenes on the ocean, which Black Sails did quite a lot. "Despite the fact that I swore I’d never do ships or ocean again, somehow the universe has put the lie to that," Steinberg said. "But there’s so much that you learn from spending all that time on the water. You can’t help it pick up some things. So we’re to the good in that direction at least."

The team behind Percy Jackson really wants to make it to Book 5, The Last Olympian

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is in the fortunate position of having a bevy of source material to draw from, since author Rick Riordan is absurdly prolific and has written 17 books set in this Greek-inspired fantasy world. The main Percy Jackson sequence was originally comprised of the first five books, which capped off with The Last Olympian. It sounds like the people behind the show, including star Walker Scobell, really want to go all the way to the climactic events covered in that book.

"I think it’s hard not to [look to] book five [The Last Olympian]," Steinberg said when asked which book he was most exccited to adapt. "All of these stories that are getting new life breathed into them and an opportunity to be brought into this medium to all come crashing together into this giant set piece of a war, and all these characters and these emotional factors intersecting is really exciting. Who knows how tall Walker will be at that point, but the story is exciting."

"Being able to get to book five — and I know Walker loves book five — would [be amazing]," added Shotz. "That culmination is just very exciting to think about. We have the benefit of, even in making season one, we have all those books to look forward to and tease and play into all those elements that we know are to come."

We'll keep our fingers crossed that the Fates weave a few more seasons for Percy Jackson and the Olympians. In the meantime, the entire first season is now available on Disney+ for the rewatch. And there are always the books to tide you over as well:

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