Major Spoilers for the Third and Final Season of Blood of Zeus

Table of Contents for Blood of Zeus

1. Season One
2. Season Two
3. Season Three

I liked most of Season 2 and how it ended with Typhon’s return and I was initially skeptical about Chronos’s introduction and return to power with Typhon essentially being revealed to be his loyal servant who wanted to free him. That being said, Chronos stole the show for this entire season. Every moment of his was a pleasure to watch. This was just great and it definitely went far beyond my expectations from back when I watched the first six episodes of Season 1 years ago. I did not expect Season 2 to impress me and for Season 3 to be as good as Season 2 in many respects.

First, I’ll lay out my criticisms though: the ending felt very rushed. I would have liked to see more of a resolution and explanation to what happened to the remains of Hades’s family, what sort of life Gorgo and Seraphim have together, what ultimately happened to Gaia or her thoughts on how the conflict ended, and the differences from Zeus’s new rule now from how he behaved prior to Heron’s sacrifice to save the Olympians from the Titans. I did like the ending overall though. I was going to add the lack of clarity on what Gorgo did, but then I stumbled upon this  and I was pleased by the clever writing on the part of the Parlapanides brothers.

Second, the story wastes too much time on forgettable characters of Heron’s friend group. I had to google Alexia, Evios, and Kofi’s names to even remember what they were. Kofi’s character was a disaster; in season 2, there were a few hints he had a crush on Alexia, then in Season 3, he suddenly reveals he has a wife who died in slavery, but then later just before his death, he reveals the slave-owner attacked his village, killed his wife, and then enslaved him. There is absolutely no consistency with this guy. Evios felt even more boring, because it’s the standard Hero’s journey tripe in hastily written form in the background. Alexia… exists; she has one romantic moment with Heron out of nowhere that is more about Heron letting go of a future that was robbed from him by Demeter’s scheming in Season 2 and to make his self-sacrifice more poignant for viewers. I have to be honest; I really tried, but the only ones I ended-up caring about were Seraphim and Gorgo among the group associated with the main protagonists who aren’t themselves Gods.

That all said, I honestly couldn’t stop myself from siding with Chronos for… all of the conflict. This man was in prison for thousands of years and all his children proved him right about how incapable they were compared to his rule, where he allowed mortals freedom to do as they wished. The attack on Zeus’s temples was a military assault and they weren’t maliciously trying to slaughter innocent people for their own gain such as what Zeus, Hera, Demeter, and basically every Olympian God or Goddess but Hermes was doing throughout most of the story of the show. Even just this season, we’re introduced to Dionysus’s sacrificial cult that mortals use to pursue their own power and Chronos’s words on how he let mortals live freely and merely mercilessly put his fellow Gods in line with a strict observance of order so their power couldn’t be abused. The torture of Hades and the murder of Persephone look terrible, but Hades was complicit with Demeter’s massacre of mortals for her family’s own gain and Persephone supported Hades’s schemes to take Olympus in Season 2 up to a point. Now, Hades has every right to protect his children from the merciless punishment that Chronos would inflict, but that still doesn’t change the fact that Chronos does these merciless actions because it really does keep the Gods in line so that they… don’t massacre, torture, or otherwise meddle and harm the affairs of mortals. Chronos isn’t a philanderer like Zeus and he doesn’t condemn children to be mercilessly hunted down and tortured like what Zeus was complicit in with Seraphim’s suffering. Chronos doesn’t poison mortal-born Demi-Gods or poison entire villages to improve their own political position to obtain the throne of Olympus like Demeter does. Chronos doesn’t stab Heron in a cowardly assassination attack like Hades, he takes Heron’s challenge and agrees to the terms. The only reason he lost is literally because he abided and respected Heron and Seraphim’s terms of the battle, while Seraphim and Heron schemed with Demeter to betray the terms in order to kill Chronos.

Put it this way, what did Chronos do that was so wrong? Every word of his argument to Heron and Seraphim was absolutely true. The only reason Seraphim decides not to join is because Gorgo is in danger due to being taken hostage; ironically as a way to convince Seraphim to join. But even here, Gorgo is established to have been a horrible person prior to converting to Artemis’s faith and becoming a priestess. The attacks on Zeus’s temples weren’t an act of malice towards humans, but an act of war to weaken Zeus so that even if he were to escape the Underworld, he’d hopefully be too weak to challenge the Titans. When he killed the ghosts of his immortal grandchildren by throwing them into the abyss . . . he was doing exactly what he said that he would and he still spared the ghost of Persephone initially until finding out that Hera tricked him. Hera has every right to feel pissed off with Chronos’s actions; but it’s also revealed that she hated her own son Hephaestus for being ugly in the past, while her son made her a mechanical magic arm to help her. She’s really not all that different from Zeus, even when she has good intentions and tries to make amends for it. She just has a different set of horrible morals and she was complicit in the slaughter of her own subjects in Season One. All of these actions by the Olympian Gods and the consequences always being the suffering of mortals just proves that Chronos is right. The Olympian Gods couldn’t even get along with each other as a family, but suddenly Chronos executing them after everything they did is a step too far after all the harm they caused? Chronos wants to bring order and balance which would allow mortals to live free from the tyranny of Gods, the Olympian Gods want to satisfy their own egos and use mortals as pawns. Think of this: Persephone’s death was more Demeter’s fault for her selfishness in wanting to keep control over her own daughter than it was Typhon’s fault; at the very least, and Demeter acknowledges this herself; Persephone was too good of a daughter for a horrible person like Demeter. She’s as much to blame for Persephone’s death as Typhon.

The final battle in which Chronos accepts a two-person duel instead of using his overwhelming force to just destroy the Olympians also shows his restraint. Importantly, he uses this restraint only against Heron and Seraphim; throughout the battle that he’s winning, he repeatedly asks that they surrender peacefully. The show tries to depict this as Chronos being arrogant, macho, and bringing a sort of doom . . . but he gave a very lengthy speech explaining his arguments and how he’d be better for mortals; he humbly asked Seraphim and Heron to join him repeatedly too. The only reason Seraphim doesn’t do it is because Gorgo is captured and because Heron has been mentoring him throughout the season, essentially taking on Zeus’s Season One role but for his brother. And again, the only reason that Chronos loses is because Seraphim and Heron secretly made an agreement with Demeter to cheat Chronos and they lied about abiding by the terms of the duel. If anything, instead of Heron “mentoring” Seraphim, he’s technically corrupting him even further. I did like Heron’s sacrifice, but it seemed more about him giving up on a future that he was meant for than any real romantic feelings for or relationship with Alexia. Whereas Gorgo and Seraphim’s interactions and Hades and Persephone’s interactions convinced me of both of theirs and they both felt dynamic.

The ending unfortunately felt very rushed with more context clues than actual narrative explaining how life will be from then on. I did like the final scene of Heron’s family uniting for a hug and Electra explaining there is nothing to forgive to Seraphim after he profusely apologizes for taking her life in season one. The last image was definitely well done. That said, I would have liked to know what happened with Hades’s family, Gaia’s perspective on the events of the ending itself, and how Seraphim and Gorgo live their lives in the mortal world then on. In thinking of how to rate this third season specifically? 8 / 10.

How would I rate Blood of Zeus overall, though? Well, Season One remains a 0 / 10, Season 2 was an 8 / 10, and Season 3 is an 8 / 10, so I’d rate it as an 8 / 10 series overall.