Warning: This article contains spoilers for Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2.Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2 has only just begun its episodic rollout on Disney+, and already it’s stirring up unnecessary character drama. The sophomore chapter of Rick Riordan’s bestselling series arrives nearly two years after the show first premiered, yet only mere months have passed since the events of Season 1. Percy, Annabeth, and Grover have quickly grown from children into teenagers, and the new season finds them split up after Grover earns his Searcher’s License and goes off to find Pan, the lost God of the Wild. Percy and Annabeth, meanwhile, return to Camp Half-Blood with Percy’s newly-discovered half-brother, Tyson, after playing a round of fiery dodgeball with a trio of giant cannibals.

The drama quickly escalates when Percy has a dream that the Cyclops Polyphemus has kidnapped Grover. This is before he, Annabeth, and Tyson witness Luke, the rebel camper who stole Zeus’ Master Bolt in Season 1, poison the tree that provides the camp’s protective border. With the border losing power, Luke on the loose, and Grover in danger, Percy and Annabeth are forced to face the reality of another quest once again, this time to retrieve the only item that can save the dying tree: the Golden Fleece. Though many of these events play out in the show similarly to how they happen in Riordan’s book The Sea of Monsters, an unfortunate storytelling device from Season 1 has returned in Season 2 — and its appearance is as head-scratching as it is problematic.

One of the Worst Storytelling Trends From ‘Percy Jackson’ Season 1 Is Back

Though Season 1 of Percy Jackson boasted plenty of positives, chief among them the casting of Walker Scobell in the title role, one element of Disney’s adaptation that stood out like a sore thumb was its pacing. The book the season was based on, Riordan’s The Lightning Thief, is a fast-paced page-turner, resulting in viewers having a television adaptation of Percy to enjoy in the first place. It’s a wonder, then, that so many of the season’s eight episodes felt like dialogue-heavy slogs wedged between Percy, Grover, and Annabeth’s heart-racing encounters with gods and monsters.

The actors also paused a fair amount during their more talkative scenes, resulting in a few too many awkward moments of dead air. Unlike Riordan’s novel, which zips along at a pace Hermes would be proud of, the first season took a little too long to bring the trio from the beginning of their quest to the end.

Though Season 2 gets off to a faster start, it continues another worrying trend from Season 1: the inclusion of unnecessary drama between Percy and Annabeth. This was not as big a deal in Season 1, when Percy and Annabeth tried to work together despite their very different worldviews and upbringings. In Season 2, however, it’s whiplash. In the second episode, “Demon Pigeons Attack,” Annabeth has a secret conversation with Chiron, who is in Miami after being suspended as the Camp Activities Director and replaced by Tantalus, an eternally hungry son of Zeus.

During their conversation, Chiron informs Annabeth that Percy cannot join her desired quest to save Grover under any circumstances, setting in motion a subplot that does not appear in the Sea of Monsters book. When Clarisse La Rue, Percy’s daughter of Ares’ enemy, wins the camp chariot race, Tantalus decides that she will lead the quest to retrieve the Fleece. After picking Annabeth to join her, Annabeth honors Chiron’s wish by encouraging Clarisse to select Chris Rodriguez for the quest instead of Percy.

This moment of betrayal runs counter to what happens in the book, which finds Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson teaming up for their own quest after Clarisse is sent out by Tantalus. The only reason it was included in the show was to create more tension between Percy and Annabeth, a puzzling decision given the many relational storms viewers have already watched them weather. They’re supposed to be friends now, so why is Percy already questioning everything he thinks he knows about Annabeth?

The Future for Percy and Annabeth in ‘Percy Jackson’

Readers of Riordan’s books are well aware that there is romance on the horizon, but Annabeth actress Leah Sava Jeffries has already said that Percy and Annabeth “don’t even know how to flirt yet,” making Season 2 a bit early to be exploring the will they/won’t they trope. Additionally, Riordan — who said the 2010 and 2013 film adaptations of his books were the equivalent of putting his life’s work “through a meat grinder” — personally stepped in as a co-creator, executive producer, and writer of Disney’s series. Why, then, is the Percy/Annabeth drama he didn’t include in his own book being inserted into an adaptation meant to be more loyal than its predecessor?

As the mastermind behind the whole saga, Riordan undoubtedly has his reasons, but from an audience perspective, this twist continues the errors of Season 1 by padding a plot that doesn’t need padding. Percy and Annabeth have already spent most of Season 1 bickering, so having them continue to be at odds after surviving multiple near-death experiences together also feels like recycled storytelling.

Sure, one could argue that it adds more drama to the season, but the characters are already on a quest to save Grover, survive the Sea of Monsters, obtain the Fleece, avoid a scuffle with Luke, return to camp, save the dying tree, and hope that Tantalus doesn’t murder them with a crossbow. Enough is going on in this action-packed plot that additional infighting between Percy and Annabeth could have easily been withheld until Season 3. All it’s going to do is slow the second season, and if Percy Jackson needs anything, it’s lightning, not more side quests.