Previously on Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief: Within the span of about fifty pages, Percy Jackson has finished seventh grade, gotten kicked out of school, went to demigod camp, and met his future waifu, not that he knows that yet. What he hasn’t done is figured out who his father is, which is definitely not contributing to his abandonment issues at all.

Percy settles into life at Camp Half-Blood, spending his days learning to fight and kayak and studying Ancient Greek, the latter of which he finds he actually is kind of hardwired to read. I like the suggestion that demigods never evolved past reading Ancient Greek for the past two thousand years. Still, Percy’s kind of bummed that he doesn’t seem to be good at anything; no one can tell who his godly parent might be since he doesn’t excel at metalworking (Hephaestus), archery (Apollo), punching people (Ares), etc. He is good at canoeing, and one day during swordfighting practice, he pours some water on his head and immediately feels stronger and can fight better. Could this be a hint about his parentage? Percy also briefly has a flash of brilliance at swordfighting; he does get established as a good swordsman as the series goes on, but he doesn’t really get a revelatory moment about it. (Luke, by the by, is mentioned to be the best swordsman in “three hundred years.”)

Percy finally catches up to Grover and asks if he’s been fired as a Keeper or whatever. Grover says that Mr. D has put him on satyr probation — he didn’t get Percy killed but he didn’t exactly do a great job of protecting him, either. Now, if only they had a quest, then that would really make up Mr. D’s mind about whether or not Grover sucks at keeping Percy alive. Oh, well, too bad that’ll never happen!

Percy asks Grover for some more exposition about the cabin situation, and Grover explains that several of the cabins are empty: some of them are just because the gods don’t have any illegitimate kids (Hera and Artemis), but then there’s the “Big Three” — Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, who are the original kids of Kronos and overthrew him to establish the age of the Olympians. They made a pact many moons ago not to sire any more children, because their kids were just too powerful — “World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other.” Okay, Winston Churchill is Poseidon’s kid, right? Because Britannia rules the waves? I can only assume that makes FDR Zeus’s kid (which I guess tracks with being able to cheat on his wife even without two working legs). Where do Truman and Stalin come into it, do you think?

(Jokes aside, I do sometimes, I don’t know, crinkle my nose a bit when I see WWII crowbarred into a fictional world like this. It’s such a mythologized war — and to be fair, that’s just as much due to propaganda during and after the war — and it does kind of trouble me that the Nazis are so often written as though they came into being via a deal with the devil or black magic, instead of being actual, normal people whose ideology sprang from very real prejudices and propaganda. Like, Hitler’s existence wasn’t because Hades is the god of violent antisemitism. I wonder sometimes if we’re not making it harder for people to grasp the banality of evil or the very human actions that led to the Holocaust. Then again, given the way my friends’ eyes glaze over when I start talking about the Somme, I guess you can argue that people just don’t care that much about history in general.) (It’s hard being the only person in the friend group who grew up on American Girl books 😔)

Anyway, Zeus broke the pact seventeen years ago (honestly a miracle he stayed on the wagon for forty plus years to begin with), and he fathered a girl named Thalia. In revenge, Hades unleashed a bunch of monsters to go after her; a satyr — who Grover doesn’t know and definitely wasn’t Grover himself — was sent to escort her and “a couple of other half-bloods” to camp, but they were overrun just at the border. Thalia sacrificed herself to save the others, and in a moment of pity, Zeus turned her into a pine tree, which stands at the camp border and helps protect it. (How the camp was protected before this is never explicitly explained.) Percy, God love him, once again doesn’t twig to the information right in front of him, namely that Grover knows a lot about this for a random satyr. He’s more focused on thinking about his mom again, feeling guilty that Thalia sacrificed herself for her friends but Percy didn’t sacrifice himself for his mom. Aw, Percy.

Alright, good talk, time for Capture the Flag! The Hermes cabin is allied with Athena and some non-main-character cabins to try and take the flag from Ares; Percy is put on guard duty because no one really trusts him with the actual infiltrating-and-fighting bit. Heh. I too always had to be the goalie during PE because I couldn’t actually play soccer or field hockey. (Percy: There was no way anybody would actually attack me, would they? I mean, Olympus had to have liability issues, right? Hee.) Anyway, the Ares kids immediately jump Percy, because they’re more concerned about defending their honor after the Toilet Incident than winning. They beat Percy up and push him into a creek, whereupon his injuries suddenly heal and he finds the strength to fight back.

The other cabins show up, Annabeth cackling that she successfully used Percy as bait to distract the Ares kids while the others stole their flag. Move over, Sun Tzu! Their triumph is short-lived, however, as a hellhound shows up out of nowhere and also tries to jump Percy. Chiron kills it in about half a page, and everyone freaks out that a monster somehow made it inside the camp borders — could it have been intentionally invited in? But wait, let’s not think too hard about that! Literally a sentence later, a “hologram” of a trident appears over Percy’s head (like this is a video game). Everyone gasps and realizes Percy is Poseidon’s kid. So much for the whole not-having-any-more-kids thing.

Percy gets moved into the Poseidon cabin, which obviously doesn’t have anyone else in it. He emos that he was just starting to fit in among the Hermes kids, but now he’s on his own. He has to eat dinner at the Poseidon table by himself, go to the camp activities by himself, etc. The cabin situation seems like a rough deal for demigods who don’t have a ton of siblings, honestly. The other kids are also freaked out over the hellhound, and they’re convinced that it was drawn to camp by Percy’s super-powerful-Big-Three demigod aura, so everyone’s treating him like a pariah except Luke and Annabeth. (Hey, remember how Annabeth said they’d have issues if Percy turned out to be Poseidon’s kid? Don’t think too much about that, because the book certainly doesn’t.)

Someone leaves a newspaper for Percy to find, presumably as a bullying tactic, as the front-page news is Percy and his mom’s disappearance. Gabe’s ranting to anyone that will listen that Percy stole his car and kidnapped Sally, and now he’s loose on a crime spree because — well, I was about to say “you know how dangerous seventh-graders are”, but then I remembered it is the worst year of middle school, so fair enough. Then Percy goes to sleep and has more prophetic dreams about the gods fighting and a voice from underground cackling villainously.

Hey, remember how quests are banned and it’s sOoOoOo unlikely we’ll get one? Cut to: Chiron giving Percy a quest. Percy’s already figured out that Zeus and Poseidon are fighting over the theft that Annabeth mentioned; Chiron explains that the stolen object was Zeus’s master lightning bolt, and Zeus thinks Poseidon was behind the theft, using Percy as a proxy. Percy’s like, “I didn’t even know I was a demigod until five minutes ago”, and Chiron’s like, “Don’t bring logic into this.” Anyway, it’s questing time! Percy needs to go visit the Oracle to figure out what he needs to do to retrieve the bolt and prevent…World War III, I guess? Are we still doing the whole demigods-are-the-countries’-leaders thing? Does that make George W. Bush one of Zeus’s kids?

The Oracle is stashed in the attic of the camp main house. She’s a desiccated mummy who opens her mouth and breathes out green smoke, which forms a vision of Gabe and his poker buddies. The Oracle speaks through them that Percy will “go west and face the god who has turned,” “find what is stolen and see it safely returned”, “be betrayed by the one [he calls] a friend”, and “fail to save what matters most in the end.” Uplifting! This whole bit is actually pretty effectively atmospheric and creepy. Percy goes back and tells Chiron that the Oracle told him he’d get the lightning bolt back, and Chiron’s like, “Huh, that’s weirdly optimistic for a prophecy. Are you sure that was the entire thing?” and Percy’s like, “For sure, that was it :>”

Luckily for Percy, Chiron has some idea of where to start, so we don’t have to waste any extra time puzzling that out. He’s pretty sure Hades is our culprit: he’s long hated Zeus and Poseidon for being jocks while he’s a goth getting the better deals re: the whole sea-sky-hell division. As such, he stands to gain the most from a war between them, and the entrance to the Underworld is indeed in the west — it’s in Los Angeles, specifically, because LA is a hellhole, get it? (I mean, I’m from NorCal, so I do broadly agree that LA sucks, but I’m not about to side with some New Yorkers over it.) Anyway, Zeus has set a deadline of the summer solstice before he starts wrecking shit, so Percy has ten days to travel the three thousand miles to LA, find and retrieve the lightning bolt, and haul ass back to New York to deliver it to Mount Olympus. No pressure!

(The summer solstice, assuming we’re in 2005, falls on June 20th, by the way, making the date June 10th right now. Percy is presumably enjoying the summer hits of Mariah Carey, Gwen Stefani, and the Black Eyed Peas every time he turns on the radio.)

Percy wants to know why Zeus and Poseidon can’t just hash this out amongst themselves, what with having superpowers and all that, but Chiron tells him they can’t really step on each other’s toes — their demigod children, on the other hand, can freely mess with other gods and trespass on their domains, so the gods frequently use their children to do their dirty work. He muses that Poseidon needs Percy to clear his (Poseidon’s) name with Zeus, and that’s why he’s claimed him. Percy is conflicted about his absentee father coming back into his life just because he needs something from his kid. Oof, relatable. Once again, while I wish the series had bothered to do more with it, the theme of parental abandonment through these books something I really like.

Anyway, Percy’s like, “Alright, well, let’s at least cut down on this trip by taking a plane to LA,” but Chiron and Grover both shriek at him that Zeus will immediately zap him out of the sky. Even without the whole lightning-theft thing, he’s too petty to let one of Poseidon’s kids swan around in his domain — meaning Percy can’t get on a plane, ever. Ever? So like, when he’s forty and wants to go on vacation outside of North America, he’s gonna have to get on a steamship like it’s the 1890s?

Anyway, we gotta assemble our party now to go on the quest. Much like Knights of the Old Republic, Percy can only take two companions with him — Grover is obviously the first; the second has to be a girl for broader YA appeal; there are only two girls Percy’s age with speaking parts; and let’s be real we’re not taking Clarisse ’cause she ugly. Annabeth it is! She’s basically already invited herself, so let’s be off. Their inventory includes an invisibility cloak baseball cap gifted to Annabeth from Athena, and Grover’s pan pipes, on which he can play Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 and “So Yesterday” by Hilary Duff. HEE! What a topical reference that will surely be understood by generations to come. I’d respect Grover more if he knew how to play “Come Clean” or “Anywhere But Here“, though. (Of course I owned that Hilary Duff CD when I was ten. Do you even have to ask?)

Luke comes to say goodbye, making Annabeth blush, then he also makes Percy blush by giving him a pair of winged shoes for his quest. Senpai noticed him! But then Percy remembers that flight is a bad idea for him, so he gives the shoes to Grover. He feels mildly salty that he doesn’t have any cool magical items, but then Chiron bequeaths his ballpoint pen to him — which of course is actually a sword named Riptide, sorry for gaslighting you about that back at school. The pen-slash-sword handily always reappears in Percy’s pocket after being used, to preempt the likelihood that a twelve-year-old with ADHD was going to forget his pen somewhere.

Alright, time to set off! Oh, wait, actually it’s time for Percy to ask for a history lesson out of nowhere so that we can foreshadow the culprit. He asks Chiron if there was a time before the gods, and Chiron tells him about the Titans and how they were, like, not very nice and humanity only began to flourish when the Olympians took over. (As it turns out, I’m still not really a Greek mythology girl; I skimmed the Wikipedia page and I’m not sure how accurate that is to the myths.) It would be a No Good Very Bad thing if the Titans were to somehow come to power again, but luckily they’re imprisoned in Tartarus and are definitely never getting out.

On the way out of camp, Percy emos some more over his mom’s disappearance and how Gabe probably doesn’t even miss her. Grover tells Percy that his mother married Gabe because Gabe’s overwhelming normieness and baldness masked Percy’s demigod scent from monsters (very much Harry Potter having to live with the Dursleys for protection). Percy’s like, “That just makes me feel worse about my mother sacrificing her happiness and ultimately her life for me, but thanks.”

Anyway, they board a bus and get attacked by the Furies in about five minutes. You know, now that I’m thinking about it, why didn’t they take a ferry or something? You know, since Percy is stronger and has some degree of protection on water? They couldn’t have traveled the whole way to LA by ship, but that would’ve at least gotten them safely to the Midwest. (I actually looked this up because I’m a nerd; most river cruises are well within the 10-day time limit, although I couldn’t find any passenger travel all the way from NY to LA that wasn’t like a three-week, roundabout cruise. They could’ve stowed away on a freight ship, I guess.)

Well, whatever. The ensuing fight with the Furies blows up the bus and strands Annabeth, Percy, and Grover on the side of the highway with nothing but the clothes on their backs. So much for the food and money the camp sent them off with. (Grover does still have his pan pipes and tries to pipe them a tune to find their way out of the woods, but Percy thinks it still sounds “suspiciously like Hilary Duff.” Hee.) They go searching for food and in short order come across “Aunty Em’s Garden Gnome Emporium”, a weird roadside shop that sells burgers along with somewhat grotesque, life-size stone statues. This was, by the way, the point where I was like, “Man, this book is really fast-paced.” I’d remembered this bit, but totally forgot that it comes so early in the book. Anyway! Aunty Em is a nice middle-aged lady who for some reason has covered her entire body with a veil, from underneath which Percy can hear hissing noises, and wow, all her statues look kind of weird and panicked. She’s clearly Medusa; Grover and Annabeth figure it out in a decent amount of time, but Percy keeps derping that she’s such a nice lady, right up until she tries to kill them. They fight and Percy manages to behead her, using a reflective ball to make sure he doesn’t look directly at her. (By the way, one of the two things the 2010 movie did right was have Percy kill Medusa using the reflection in his 5th-generation iPod. I also rewatched that recently with my friend and laughed so hard when he pulled that out.)

Percy and Annabeth snipe at each other some more about how this was kind of Percy’s fault, because Athena only turned Medusa into a Gorgon because she was banging Poseidon in Athena’s temple (or was raped there, depending on the telling), or maybe it’s Annabeth’s fault because Athena is petty, and maybe Percy and Annabeth shouldn’t even be friends because their parents hate each other. Percy suggests that maybe it’s all a little bit bullshit that they’re caught in these rivalries just because of their absentee parents. He then finds some mythological money and mailing information — along with a location for the Underworld (“DOA Recording Studios” in LA, cute), conveniently — among Medusa’s things, and mails Medusa’s head straight to Mount Olympus to get his dad’s attention let the gods know he’s not interested in being shuffled around like their pawn.

They make camp for the night and Grover waxes on about how Humans Bad because we’re destroying the environment, because every YA book in the 2000s had to have a message about this for some reason, cf. Artemis Fowl and Maximum Ride. All satyrs, as it turns out, are followers of the Great God Pan (not the 1890s horror novella, sadly); Pan disappeared a bajillion years ago and most humans think he’s dead, but satyrs are convinced that he’s just hiding and/or asleep, and they’re awaiting his return. Like Jesus. Some satyrs actively go out and search for him, and Grover is hoping to prove his worth and get a searcher’s license so that he can look for Pan, too. Of course, every satyr who’s set out to find Pan for the past thousand years has disappeared and never been found again, but Grover’s sure that he’ll be the first to come back alive. Percy’s like, “…yeah, I’m sure you will.”

Percy brings up the fact that Grover is clearly the satyr who brought Annabeth to Camp Half-Blood and got Thalia turned into a tree and they almost have a talk about it but then they don’t. Grover then tells Percy that, according to Annabeth, something is fishy about this whole thing — the Furies were holding back and asking Percy where something was, and why would they be doing that if they’re agents of Hades, who already has the lightning bolt? (I mean, the book doesn’t say that quite so explicitly because it’s trying to build suspense for the twelve-year-olds reading, but that’s what they’re getting at.) Percy blows this off and tells Grover that he doesn’t actually care about this whole quest business; he only took the job so he can go to the Underworld and save his mom. Grover suggests that perhaps Percy cares a little about finding the lightning bolt and impressing Poseidon because he has daddy issues. Percy does not like that at all.

More ominous dreams of foreshadowing. Percy wakes up, discovers Grover can talk to animals, and has made an agreement with a local dog to return him for reward money, which they’ll use to take Amtrak across the country. Guys. You’re still on the east coast and within the North American river system. TAKE A FERRY.

Percy’s at least smart enough to know he should tell Annabeth about his prophetic dreams; she once again muses that it doesn’t sound like Hades is their villain. Could something else be going on? Let’s not think about that too hard, though; Percy changes the subject and tells Annabeth that he has to go after Hades because he wants his mom back — she can relate to that, right? Annabeth’s like, “Not really.” She tells Percy that she’s not on good terms with her mortal father, who has basically spent the better part of her life ignoring her. He didn’t even take any “digital photos” when she floated down from Olympus in a golden cradle! Heh. Maybe that’s because you were born in the early 1990s, Annabeth, and we were still taking photos on film and getting them developed at the Costco one-hour photo desk back then.

Annabeth’s dad eventually married a normie woman and they had some normie children, and Annabeth being a demigod and getting chased by monsters all the time put a real damper on their family life. Annabeth ended up running away when she was seven. She vagues that she eventually found some other demigods and they made it to Camp Half-Blood, kind of — because, obviously, one of those other demigods was Thalia and she was turned into a tree and all that, but for some reason we’re still not really having this conversation.

Moving on! The train has a layover in St. Louis and Annabeth wants to see the Gateway Arch. She tells Percy that she wants to be an architect when she grows up, because all the Athena kids have the personality trait of loving…planning, or some shit. This time, Percy is the one with a bad feeling, but Grover and Annabeth ignore him. Naturally, a monster has found them — Echidna, this time. Percy’s like, “Isn’t that an anteater?” and Echnida howls that everyone thinks that and she hates Australia!!! Hee. Percy actually loses the ensuing fight pretty badly; Echidna manages to take a swipe at him and poison him, and he ends up having to jump from the Arch all the way into the Mississippi River to escape. The water heals him, and one of Poseidon’s messengers appears, telling Percy to go to the beach in Santa Monica, and not to trust “the gifts.” She disappears before Percy can ask her what she’s talking about. Suspense! When Percy resurfaces, everyone assumes he tried to blow up the Arch or whatever; Gabe’s story starts gaining traction and Percy’s face is all over the news as the most dangerous seventh-grader in America. Didn’t we have bigger problems in 2005? Like the War on Terror? (This book does take place before Hurricane Katrina, I admit.) (Also, none of this really has any bearing on the story anyway — they do a bit of hiding but otherwise don’t have too much trouble from all the mortals apparently on the lookout for Percy.)

Our trio manages to get back on the train and make it to Denver without any incidents. In Denver, Annabeth says they need to “IM” Chiron. Percy: “Instant messaging?” and Annabeth corrects, “Iris messaging.” Heh. These books are so charmingly dated. (A story about IMing: when I was like ten, I got sick at a friend’s house while her brother was watching us, and he wasn’t coming upstairs when we called for him, so I dragged myself out of bed and we found him in the rec room, chatting with his friends on AIM while bumping “Get Busy” by Sean Paul. Good times.) One can summon Iris to carry a message for them by spraying some water on a sunny day to create a rainbow, whatever, the details aren’t important. Annabeth tosses Floo powder into the fireplace a drachma coin into the rainbow and calls for camp. Instead of Chiron picking up, though, it’s Luke. He tells them that Chiron’s busy, because things are getting hinky at camp — word’s gotten out about Zeus and Poseidon fighting, and all of the campers are starting to pick sides based on their own parents. It’s like the Trojan War all over again! It is? What’s Troy in this comparison, New Jersey? Anyway, most of the gods are backing Poseidon, but Athena is backing Zeus, which you’d think would cause conflict with Annabeth and Percy but it doesn’t really.

Annabeth departs the conversation because she’s too embarrassed to let Luke see her looking like a mess; while she’s gone, Luke and Percy chat a bit about the lightning bolt theft. Luke muses that one would have to be invisible to sneak past the gods — not that he’s suggesting Annabeth had anything to do with that! “She’s a like a little sister to me,” he notes, which Percy thinks that Annabeth will not like. Heh. He also wants to know if Percy is wearing the shoes he gave him and Percy lies because he doesn’t want senpai to feel bad. When they hang up, Luke once again alludes to Grover being the satyr who led Annabeth to camp and got Thalia turned into a pine tree. Book, we’ve revealed this like three times already. We really ought to just have a talk about it.

Percy, Annabeth, and Grover go get food and Ares happens upon them. He rolls up on a motorcycle and wears leather and chains and “Enter Sandman” plays in the background when he walks in, I don’t know. He wants Percy to go grab his shield, which he left behind while he was on a “date with his girlfriend.” In exchange, Ares will help them get further west. Percy gives him some lip, but Annabeth and Grover elbow him into agreeing, lest Ares turn him into a rodent. The shield is located in a janky, run-down water park and Percy’s like, “Ares’s girlfriend hooks up with him here? She don’t love herself.” Grover and Annabeth panic that Ares’s girlfriend is, y’know, Aphrodite, and she certainly wouldn’t take kindly to being insulted like that. I mean…is Percy wrong, though? Percy derps that he thought Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus. We’re 60% of the way through the book; I don’t know how he’s gotten this far and still thought the gods exclusively have sex with their spouses.

Anyway, the shield is lying in the broken-down, empty Tunnel of Love ride (man, Aphrodite really doesn’t love herself); Percy goes after it and Annabeth balks at going into the Tunnel of Love with a boy. Middle schoolers, man. Annabeth keeps derping that there are “Eta” letters everywhere, but I guess being a demigod doesn’t make them fluent in Ancient Greek — feels like it’s not a super great power to get in exchange for being dyslexic, then? — because she doesn’t remember that “Eta” is the Greek “H” until it’s too late. The whole thing was a trap laid by Hephaestus to catch Ares and Aphrodite together, and the ride fills up with mechanical spiders, which freaks Annabeth out since apparently all of Athena’s kids are arachnophobic, blah blah teaching kids about the myth of Arachne and Athena blah. Percy manages to use his water powers to flood the ride, and he and Annabeth work together to surf to safety.

Ares is unfazed by them nearly dying and tosses them some Oreos and $20 (that went further in 2005, God bless). He’s booked them a ride to Las Vegas in the back of a truck carrying circus animals, whose procurement is of, uh, dubious legality. Their mistreatment outrages Grover and we have to stop for a paragraph so our heroes can reassure the animals that they care about animal rights and PETA and stuff. (Sidebar: Environmentalism is a good thing to care about! It’s just that it’s funny, looking back, the way it’s written about here evokes the particularly 2000s culture around it — a lot of emphasis on animal rights and opposition to animal testing, particularly, and the issue would often come up in fantasy fiction to make a point about how humanity is bad and how the story’s supernatural creatures treat the environment right.)

Anyway, our trio bonds some more on the way to Vegas: Annabeth and Grover finally spell out what we already knew, which is that Grover was the satyr who was supposed to lead Thalia to camp. The other two demigods with her were Annabeth and Luke, who’d kind of stumbled on each other because the gods said so or whatever. Grover is all down on himself because he thinks Percy — and the monsters he attracts — will be too powerful for Grover to handle, just like Thalia was. After Grover goes to sleep, Annabeth opens up to Percy about her family – her father has invited her to live with him again, but when she tried it last time, her stepmom still hated her, and Annabeth has given up on making up with her family. Percy tells her she ought to give them another chance. Then he asks if the gods start fighting, if it’s going to end up “like the Trojan War”, i.e. Athena vs. Poseidon. I mean, why would it? This is an entirely different conflict. Annabeth brushes the question aside and says she’ll choose Percy’s side because they’re friends now. That’s sweet, but…way to not explore the potential conflict between them, or have them struggle a bit to forge their own destinies vs. following their parents’ rivalries, as was hinted when Percy sent Medusa’s head to the gods. They just kinda agree to be friends and that’s it.

When Percy falls asleep, he has a prophetic dream about Thalia: “She was my age, with unruly black, punk-style hair, dark eyeliner around her stormy green eyes, and freckles across her nose.” HEE! She and Percy are trapped together, and Thalia tells Percy that he’s gotta get them out of there so she can go to Warped Tour. Maybe not that last part. Then Percy finds himself dreaming about the Underworld, and a mysterious voice speaks to another, saying, “My lord, the Triwizard Tournament will be held at Hogwarts this year,” while an even more evil voice cackles and says that they’ll use it to bring Harry Potter to them. Oh, wait, wrong book. Mysterious Voice 1 reports that all is going according to keikaku once more, and Mysterious Voice 2 laughs that they’re all fools, fools!, not to realize his evil plan, although he does wish Mysterious Voice 1 were a little less incompetent. Mysterious Voice 1 calls him “the Crooked One”, which is a hint to our villain’s identity for all the kids who were already a little familiar with Greek mythology before reading this.

Percy wakes up and finds they’ve arrived in Vegas and the last third of the book, which is where we’ll pick up. Up next: they make it to hell, aka Los Angeles. Our mystery is solved, OR IS IT?