By the end of the SEAL Team series finale, Bravo is moving forward without two key members—but, perhaps surprisingly, not because either of them dies.
Still operating are Jason (David Boreanaz)—who’s doing better after going to see the wife of the first man he killed in Afghanistan—Omar (Raffi Barsoumian), Drew (Beau Knapp), Brock (Justin Melnick), and Trent (Tyler Grey). Ray (Neil Brown Jr.), meanwhile, does not retire to join Naima (Parisa Fakhri) full-time as Spenser House but instead takes the head of warfighter health position that had been marked for Jason. Sonny (A.J. Buckley) is also off Bravo, having given up his trident to ensure the investigation into who hit Colonel Decker didn’t stop Davis (Toni Trucks) from getting the promotion she deserved—and they’re now together!
TV Insider spoke with executive producer Spencer Hudnut about landing on those endings, not killing anyone off, and much more.
What made this the right ending?
Spencer Hudnut: I think the message of hope. Really after seven seasons of putting our characters through so many ups and downs, whether in their personal lives, in their mental health, it just felt like we wanted to leave them in a place—I care about these characters. We’ve dragged them through so much. I wanted to get them to a place where it felt earned but that they were all in places where they felt like we could see what came next for them. For Jason, while he’s continuing to operate, he at least has this new context of how he sees himself, how he sees his future, with Mandy’s [Jessica Paré] help and his teammates’ help, he’s kind of battled through the shame that he was dealing with all season; that journey to Afghanistan actually really helped him kind of get on the path to atoning for his past.
And so it just felt like, what would be the point after 114 episodes to end it in a way that was anything but—it doesn’t necessarily need to be uplifting. I think there’s a tragic element to Jason still operating, but I think our military community who had watched this show is so important to us that to give a glimmer of hope and to remind people that the rest of us, that we need to do so much more for our men and women in uniform and vets… That just felt like an opportunity to really celebrate these characters, this community in a positive way.
Did you ever consider killing off Jason or removing him from operating?
Of course. How could I not?
How close did you come to it?
In a world where David was going to leave but the show was going to continue, that would’ve been challenging, and I think there would’ve been a temptation to maybe exit his character in a different way. David and I have always kind of been of a similar mindset that this character means so much to so many people that to have him come to a tragic end, what would be the point of that? And so while I could justify it with Clay [Max Thieriot, who left for Fire Country], I think for Jason it’s a completely different thing. So, no. I would say if you asked me Season 4, the answer might have been, yeah, Jason might come to a tough ending, but especially on the heels of Clay in Season 6, it just felt like we’ve all been through too much.Is that also why you didn’t kill off anyone else before the series ended?
Yes. Obviously, Nate [Daniel Gillies] died in the pilot, Adam [Michael Irby] died in Season 2, Full Metal [Scott Foxx] died, and then Clay. I think Clay’s death allowed us to really get under the hood and examine what that was like for his teammates and how painful that was, and I think we were saying something with his death. To just kill someone else to make it tragic or to remind people what war is about, what can happen in war… We’ve spent so much time dealing with the consequences of war that I couldn’t find a justifiable reason to do it to any of our characters. I also truly love them all and wanted to see them get to places.
And I think it’s more surprising [where they ended up]. I think Sonny deciding to leave the Navy is a much bigger statement than Sonny being killed on the battlefield. I think Ray deciding to stay in and continue to watch his teammates’ backs but in a new way is more interesting than seeing him die. And I think for Jason, the mixed bag of seeing hope of a future but also not being able to quit operating or quit this work is both a heroic and kind of tragic ending for him.
There are two things that we didn’t see: Jason’s conversation with the wife of his first kill and the rescue of Bravo with the cut to the wedding. Can you talk about your decision to handle those scenes like that?
Just for timeline purposes, we started breaking the season in January of 2023. The writers showed up in February and March. By the time the strike came around, we had broken all of it and seven scripts were in the works. And we came back in October.
