Why the first scene in the new episode of Percy Jackson and the Olympians didn't work

I have not read the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan. But I watching the new Percy Jackson and the Olympians series on Disney+ to see what all the fuss is about, and by and large, it's been pleasant. The show moves a little quickly, but I've been more-or-less diverted by the tale of young demigod Percy Jackson finding out where he fits into a world full of Greek gods and monsters. I'll definitely check out the finale when it lands on Disney+ next Tuesday.

That said, the show has had some issues, some of which might only both those who have read the source material; the fans over on the Percy Jackson subreddit seem to not be enjoying the series at all. And while I disagree, I can see some of their points. For instance, one thing that comes up a lot over there is that Percy and his friends seem to be fully informed about what villainous monsters they're facing next before those monsters show up, which takes away some of the drama of the books, which more often threw Percy and company into the deep end. Again, I don't know when the show is being accurate to the books and when it's diverting, but sometimes it's so awkward that even I intuit that something is up.

That happened at the top of the most recent episode, "We Find Out the Truth, Sort Of," which begins with Percy walking into Crusty's Water Bed Palace. The water bed store is run by Procrustes, aka Crusty, another son of Poseidon. His store also contains the entrance to the Underworld of Hades, which it is Crusty's duty to guard. Anyone who lays on one of his waterbeds will be trapped.

We know this because Percy says it all directly to Crusty within the first couple minutes of the episode, and as I watched I thought I must have missed a scene. This felt like this the climax of some storyline where Percy and company found out where the entrance to the Underworld was (they need to get down there to complete a quest), discovered who was guarding it, and made a plan to take him down. But we didn't see any of that. The show skipped right to the end, leaving me confused.

i gather than, in the book, Percy and friends enter Crusty's Water Bed Palace while looking for the entrance to the Underworld, unaware of who Crusty is or his ill intentions. Grover and Annabeth get trapped on waterbeds while Percy tricks Crusty into laying on one himself. That's a lot more compelling than the confusing leapfrog event we got on the show. It seems clear that Percy Jackson and the Olympians didn't have the time necessary to build up to a proper confrontation with Procrustes. I think the episode would have been stronger if this whole section was cut, and we just saw Percy find the entrance to the Underworld in some other, simpler way.

So why wasn't it cut? Well, this is just speculation, but given that Rick Riordan is closely involved with the new TV show, maybe he couldn't bear to cut it? Sometimes authors are loathe to part with their creations. It's possible that Riordan or some other producer insisted on keeping the bit with the waterbeds, but that the practicilities of making a TV show meant that they could only include it in abbreviated form. So they opted to have a lame version of the scene rather than no version at all. I think that was the wrong choice, but the show is still pretty fun.

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