[This story contains spoilers for “Clarisse Blows Up Everything,” the fourth episode of Percy Jackson and the Olympians season two.]
In the first season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Clarisse La Rue was straightforwardly a foil for the show’s title character — a tough, sometimes bullying antagonist who seemed to enjoy harassing Percy (Walker Scobell) as he got used to the idea of being a demigod and learned his way around Camp Half-Blood.
In the show’s second season, though Clarisse, played by Dior Goodjohn, becomes much more central to the story, and Goodjohn gets to show several more layers to the character — including some self-doubt as she takes on the quest for the Golden Fleece and, as she puts it, some “epic” physical acting and stunts in episode four, when Clarisse takes command of a Civil War-era ironclad ship to sail through the Sea of Monsters.
The Percy Jackson production team built a huge physical set for the ironclad and put the cast through a demanding (and very wet) sequence of filming for the scenes in which Clarisse, Percy, Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries), Tyson (Daniel Diemer) and a crew of undead sailors pilot the ship between the twin dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, who guard the entrance to the Sea of Monsters. After initially opting for a plan to sacrifice several members of the crew to Scylla to gain passage, Clarisse suddenly pivots to attack Charybdis, leading to chaos — but also a scene she cited as one of her favorites of the season.
“There’s a scene where I run out the bow of my ship in the rain, like full on storm level, and I hop on this giant gun,” she told The Hollywood Reporter on the show’s set late last year, during filming of season two. “I’m spinning and shooting, Walker is at the very front of the bow and controlling the ocean. It’s the most epic shot I’ve seen. It’s so cool.”
Before she takes command of the ironclad, however, she faces moments of doubt. In episode three, she hesitates when asking for a prophecy from the oracle before leaving on her quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece, which will heal Thalia’s tree and the barrier that protects Camp Half-Blood. Then, in a meeting her father — Ares, the Greek god of war (Adam Copeland) — before setting sail, the scene plays out like he’s an overly aggressive sports dad whom she desperately wants to be proud of her.
“In her head, she’s just a little girl who wants to make her dad happy so badly,” Goodjohn told THR. With Clarisse and Ares, this is like getting really heavy, but it’s a somewhat abusive parent-child relationship. One of her most admirable qualities is her leadership, but her leadership doesn’t come from her giving orders. Her leadership comes from the love of the team, and that comes from her loyalty, and her loyalty was trained by her father. She knows nothing but that you stick with the people that you were put here with, even if they hurt you and tell you that you’re not anything. One thousand percent, her need for approval and her need for recognition and love from her father is the main driving force.”
Clarisse initially sets out on the quest solo, but after meeting up with Percy, Annabeth and Tyson — who are AWOL from camp — she begins to understand that she doesn’t have to take on every challenge herself. She also changes tactics with the ship’s undead crew: After they ignore her attempts at barking orders, she appeals to their desire to be seen as heroes. Defeated warriors owe a debt to Ares, and she promises that should they succeed, they’ll be delivered to Elysium rather than the painful afterlife they’ve endured so far.
“She realizes that demanding things from people is not gonna work, and she is not her father, as much as she tries to be,” Goodjohn said of Clarisse’s epiphany. “She just gets really real. That’s one thing that I love about her. She’s not afraid to get in the dirt with her people. She’s not gonna tell her men to go jump off a bridge and not jump off the bridge with them. So she takes that leap and is like, ‘You guys suck, and I suck too, but we don’t have to. You just have to meet me where I’m at. If you meet me where I’m at, we can win.’ And that’s exactly what they do.”
