TV Review: "Blood of Zeus" (Season 2)

The sophomore season of the Netflix animated series broadens the scope of its story, with richly tragic results for characters both new and old.

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I remember being fascinated and riveted by the first season of Blood of Zeus, the animated series created by Charley and Vlas Parlapanides, which first aired in 2020. The first season was very much a hero’s journey, focusing primarily on Heron–the half-blood son of Zeus–as he discovers the truth about his identity, experiences remarkable heartbreak, and becomes involved in a brewing war among the gods. At the same time, he also had to deal with his half-brother Seraphim, who has become a demon thanks to devouring the flesh of a giant. 

While the conflict between Seraphim and Heron remains a key component of this season’s story, it is now situated among a number of other conflicts, particularly since Zeus' position as the leader of the Olympians is now essentially up for grabs. I quite enjoyed the fact that we got to see more of Seraphin than we did in the first season, who is shown to be more than just a monster. Indeed, like so many other great antiheroes he becomes more sympathetic as the season goes on, particularly once it’s revealed the extent to which he carries around a burden of guilt for his abandonment of a priestess who perished as a result of his actions and whose spirit now languishing at the boundary of the River Styx.

This sophomore season gives us much more insight into the divinities that rule Olympus, particularly now that all of them are trying to claim the rule of the gods for themselves. Of all the gods scheming and trying to seize the Eleusinian Stone, the one who is arguably the most important is Hades and, in some ways, it wouldn’t be going too far to say that he is as much the star of this season as either Heron or Seraphim. Fortunately, the series doesn’t go the lazy route and paint him as some sort of ancient Greek equivalent of Satan (as has been done to death so many other times). Instead, he’s a husband and a lover who merely wants to be with his wife, Persephone, who is shown here as a willing spouse rather than the victim of kidnapping and rape.

Indeed, I quite liked the way that this season sidesteps the issue that has always haunted the Hades/Persephone relationship, and the fact that their relationship is one of equals gives it a weight and heft that one doesn’t always see in depictions of classical myth. Persephone’s mother Demeter, for her part, is depicted  here as jealous and scheming in her own right, and she even goes so far as to introduce a fungus that kills mortals and weakens the gods, thus increasing the chances that Seraphim will gain the Eleusinian Stone. The brilliance of Blood of Zeus lies in its ability to let us see how our preconceptions about the heroes and villains of classical myth aren’t as simple as we might like to believe. Gods, like humans, often contain shades of both.

Unfortunately for all of them, Hades’ love–as so often in Greek myth–is the foundation for yet another tragedy. When, in the season’s final episode, he strikes Heron down and seizes the Stone for himself, he brings the wrath of Gaia crashing down on all of their heads. It’s one of those moments in which the mendacity and the cruelty of the Olympians is brought into stark relief. In their efforts to take Olympus for their own, they have inadvertently brought about the exact circumstances of their own potential demise. Given what we’ve seen in the series so far, one can’t help but wonder: isn’t this possibly for the good?

And then there’s Zeus. At the end of the first season he sacrificed himself, and now he has been sent to the underworld, where he is put on trial before three of his own sons. Despite the fact that he has given up everything in order to save Hera (and the rest of creation) from the wrath of the Giants, he is still sentenced to Tartarus, though there is hope that he can be offered some form of salvation if those who worshiped him on Earth remain faithful to his memory. It’s both sad and a little disturbing to see the king of the gods himself reduced to the ultimate abject.  

As was the case with the first season, the animation in Blood of Zeus is exquisitely wrought, capturing both the beauty and the blood and the terror of the world of ancient myth. I continue to be in awe of the level of craft and attention that went into making sure that places like Hades, Mount Olympus, and others feel as if they are both real and also fantastical, that they exist in a sort of primordial state yet also feel as if they are places that we could visit. The visual palette ties neatly into the series’ overall ethos, which is definitely regarded as something of a remix of the ancient Greek myth. The bones of the familiar stories are there, but they’ve been given new and exciting flesh. 

And, of course, this season also ends on a cliffhanger, as an enraged Gaia decides to unleash the terrible Titans on the world once again. Given Netflix’s bad habit of canceling even great shows, I’m not terribly confident that they’ll give this one a chance to finish telling its stories, but I certainly hope that they do. Blood of Zeus takes some big swings, and its team deserves the chance to see these stories through to their conclusion. 

If nothing else, Blood of Zeus makes it clear that the myths and stories of antiquity still have relevance for the modern age, giving birth to a new set of stories that move and terrify us, even as they also fill us with awe. I can only hope that we don’t have to wait another three and a half years to get the next installment of this satisfying and enthralling story.