‘Percy Jackson’: Aryan Simhadri Teases Grover’s Big Changes & Solo Quest Season 2

Grover Underwood (Aryan Simhadri) has been tasked with protecting demigods for years. Now, the demigods need to save him in Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2 on Disney+.

“We waste no time putting Grover in danger,” Simhadri told TV Insider in our Fall Preview interview. The Percy Jackson Season 2 trailer doesn’t waste time on that front either. Grover is snatched by a sea monster’s tentacle and dragged away in the first 15 seconds of the trailer. He’s later heard saying, “Percy, you’ve got to find me,” and we see him tied up in what’s no doubt a scene with the blind cyclops Polyphemus (Aleks Paunovic), who is Grover’s biggest foe in Season 2.

After Camp Half-Blood’s protective border is breached, Percy embarks on an epic odyssey into the Sea of Monsters in search of his best friend, Grover, and the one thing that may save the camp — the legendary Golden Fleece. With help from Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries), Clarisse (Dior Goodjohn), and his newfound cyclops half-brother Tyson (Daniel Diemer), Percy’s survival becomes essential to stopping Luke (Charlie Bushnell), the Titan Kronos, and their impending plan to bring down Camp Half-Blood — and ultimately, Olympus.

So, where is Grover when the peril begins? The last time we saw him was in the Season 1 finale, when he was about to search for Pan, the god of nature. In Season 2, fans will get to see Grover on this quest. Simhadri shared what to expect in Grover’s first scenes in Season 2.

“We join him as he’s in this forest, and right away from the second we meet him, he’s already off,” the actor told TV Insider. “He stumbles upon this satyr corpse, which is very telling of what’s in Grover’s immediate future for this season.”

Disney+

Grover is far from the first satyr to embark on a quest to find Pan. As explained in Season 1, many have tried, but none have returned. The blind cyclops Polyphemus is responsible for many of those tragic tales. Grover comes across “a lot” of dead satyrs the closer he gets to the cyclops, Simhadri warned, and once he gets to Polyphemus’ cave, it’s a “traumatic” sight.

“If you think about the quest for Pan as a bunch of linear events that happen — if he’s at point B and we start at point A — Polyphemus’ cave is a huge roadblock that a lot of satyrs eventually had to come up against. And so far, none of them have come back alive,” Simhadri explained. “So it’s interesting. It’s a cool dynamic to see Polyphemus making light of the fact that Grover shows up in his cave. To Polyphemus, Grover is just another snack. To Grover, this is his whole life. And so seeing him step on satyr skulls and bones strewn all over the place, it’s a traumatic position for Grover to be in, let alone the fact that he’s alone from friends and family and home.”

Related

'Percy Jackson': Walker Scobell on Poseidon's 'Insult' & Tyson's Arrival in Season 2

Grover’s dangerous quest meant that Simhadri was doing stunts on his first day of filming the second season, “which was sick,” the actor raved. Another thing that excited him was Grover finally getting his reed pipe. Satyrs use reed pipes to channel their woodland magic. When they play certain songs, the musical instrument can help them do things such as capture enemies, grow plants, and more. While Grover’s reed pipe is in the first book, The Lightning Thief, it wasn’t included in Season 1 of the show.

Grover will receive his panpipe at the beginning of Season 2, Simhadri shared (you can see him with the instrument in the photo at the top of the page). This was something he talked to the writers about including in the second season.

“I’m so glad that we found a place for this,” Simhadri said. “I talked to Daphne about it, who’s one of our incredible writers, because it wasn’t there in Season 1. And we were both like, ‘Yeah, it makes sense that Grover would now have this opportunity to showcase his skills.'”

Grover feels like a “complete” character to the actor now, thanks to this addition.

“That’s his way of fighting,” Simhadri said. “It’s part of his kit, and so I feel now like it’s finally complete. Grover in Season 2 is basically the Grover that we’re going to see for the rest of the show.”

“We get to see him getting his pipes, and it’s right off the top,” he added. “It’s kind of an immediate up for him, which was selfishly awesome for me. It’s cool that he now has this physical evidence that he’s older and he’s a little more capable.”

Simhardri also shared what he thinks will surprise fans the most about Grover’s plot this season.

“I think it’s easy to forget that Grover’s on his own quest a lot of the time, because he can’t really bring it up to Percy and Annabeth. They don’t really understand in the same way that he does,” he said. “They were abandoned by their godly parents, and so was Luke. And that’s why all of this started. Grover, and kind of any satyr, has always had his.”

“He’s more vulnerable than everyone thinks he is,” Simhadri continued. “He’s portrayed as this protector who is solely there for Percy and Annabeth, but this season we see him on his own and what that does to him … You get to see him lose it a little bit. He kind of just fully cracks. That’s something that we’ve never really seen from Grover before.”

Percy Jackson Season 2 debuts with two episodes on Wednesday, December 10.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Season 2 Premiere, Wednesday, December 10, Disney+ and Hulu