Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD for the SEAL Team series finale! SEAL Team showrunner Spencer Hudnut has explained that the series would have continued without lead actor David Boreanaz after season 7 if the show had continued. The SEAL Team series finale saw Jason (Boreanaz) stay with Bravo Team, finally able to forgive himself for the number of people he had to kill over the years of service. Although the show ended with his overseas missions set to continue in a future that viewers won’t see, Boreanaz actually had plans to leave the show in season 7 if it wasn’t the final episode.
Speaking to Collider, Hudnut revealed that he never knew Boreanaz was planning to leave SEAL Team after season 7, revealing that he had five weeks to plan the series finale when news broke that the show had been canceled. However, the showrunner revealed that if Boreanaz leaves, newly introduced Drew (Beau Knapp) and other younger Bravo members will take over as core characters. Check out what Hudnut had to say below: The short answer is that he and I never had that conversation. I found out in November that this was going to be the last season. I understand why he might have made that decision on his own. But the truth is, I started breaking down Season 7 in January of 2023. The writers came in February and March. Before the strike, we were breaking down the entire season and we probably had about seven scripts in the works. We came back in early October, we basically had nine scripts done, and I started messing around with the end of the season. And then when I was told in early November that it was the end of the series, we were only five weeks away from starting production. I lost all the writers for five weeks and we were locked down to go to Colombia. So that really only gave me about three episodes of the end to land the plane.
Of course, I knew that BRAVO Team had been around for a long time. With Season 7, there was no way that anyone was going to continue, so the main characters were already on their way out. My goal was to have more seasons. That’s why we introduced the character of Drew. I got a lot of messages on social media about, Why would you introduce a character when you only have 10 episodes left? Drew was there to be a bridge character, like Omar, in case the reins needed to be passed to the next generation of BRAVO Team, to really build those guys up as the season went on, to the point where people actually cared about those guys, in case they took on a more prominent role. While I never wanted to do a SEAL Team episode without David, part of the job was to keep the show going. That was a challenge I thought we would face, but it wasn’t.
With no more SEAL Team episodes, the show was moving toward a conclusion that would bring Jason back into the fold, leaving him at the helm of Bravo as their global operations continued. However, Hudnut’s plan showed that this wasn’t always the case, as the leader and other senior members of the team were gradually left behind as a new generation of soldiers took over. This approach would allow the series to continue beyond season 7, proving that there will always be people on the team who carry out important missions.
While SEAL Team season 7 didn’t get the chance to explore this concept in depth, the ending was still a fitting end to Jason’s story, while also allowing other characters to shine. This included Ray (Neil Brown Jr.) becoming Warfighter Team Leader Heath, along with Sonny (A.J. Buckley) and Davis (Toni Trucks) getting their happy endings. While the ideas that would have worked if Boreanaz had left never materialized, the show still managed to give a parting look at many of the characters it helped shape over the years.
However, despite the fitting ending, it could be interesting to see how SEAL Team would have evolved after its leader left. This would bring some of the younger members to the forefront, giving them further development as some of them, like Drew, begin to take on more leadership roles within the group. That development would be an intriguing direction for the series, making the series’ ending a bittersweet one, given what could have been.
