David Boreanaz Hints Bravo 1 Might Not Exist in Final Season of ‘SEAL Team’
SEAL Team returns for its seventh and final season on Sunday, and series star David Boreanaz revealed that it could also be the swan song for the military drama’s lead character Jason Hayes, aka Bravo 1, in what could be a fitting conclusion to his story.
When asked if the series would have a happy ending, Boreanaz told Parade, “In terms of a happy ending, what makes the character real? Dying on the battlefield? Having a flag draped over the coffin, being able to be pushed, understanding what that sacrifice was? It sounds right for Jason. Let’s see what happens.”
SEAL Team has always been a tearjerker with the loss of team members, the breakups of marriages, the mental health issues that come with kicking down doors, because it was important to the producers, the cast, and the crew to have a true representation of what life is like for a SEAL Team member, and that hasn’t changed in the final season.
“It’s the reality of it,” Boreanaz continued. “I think that’s a little bit bittersweet in its own way, right? Because ultimately you’re sacrificing to protect and serve your country without any purpose. That’s what I love about our show, it’s not a political show, it never has been. I remember early in the first season, I think we had a press conference and some reporter asked about your political views and are you left or right. No, we’re not, this is what we do. This is getting the job done, mission successful, blow up, capture, kill, leave no trace, that’s how we do it. That’s the kind of characters we are.”
But before it ends, SEAL Team Season 7 is set to begin, and here’s what Boreanaz told us we can expect in the upcoming season: Related: Here’s What’s Happening When SEAL Team Returns for Its Seventh and Final Season What do you hope to accomplish with your final season of SEAL Team?
In preparation, even before the season started, I had a mental note that said, “For me, the character is done, I’m done with the show, I’m done with the show whether you want to continue or not.” I made that decision right from the beginning. Then the writers’ strike happened, and a few months went by. I came to that conclusion before it even started.
In this final season of the series, it was great that we were able to look at the whole spectrum for the character. We looked at TBI, we looked at PTS, we knew that the most important thing was what does the first kill mean to an operator, how does he process that, how does he process that going forward, how does that haunt him, how does he deal with that trauma?
For me, that was a hallmark of like, “Okay, if I say the theme of this season until the end of the series is you never leave a brother behind,” that’s a very important theme for Jason Hayes. Never leave your family behind, never leave your balance behind, never leave yourself behind, being self-aware as an agent, how do you handle that, how do you deal with that trauma?
Honestly, it’s a trauma that’s very difficult for him to understand, to lean into, to deal with. We see him on the outside looking in, standing on the sidelines in the first few episodes, thinking that he’s got it all under control and balanced. Of course, it’s clear that Jason never really got it under control and balanced because he thinks, he’s imprinted, he’s a disturbance to the people around him, where his true darkness is the battlefield and pushing people away.
You slowly see those flags in his relationship with Mandy (Jessica Paré) and how that relationship develops and how she perceives it and how she’s afraid that he’s going to go back to his old ways. I think that’s something that these real men struggle with in a normal and real way. So it’s interesting to know that we can look at that first murder and what it means and the trauma and things like that. Finally, the battlefield, we’ve always said this is where these real men die. It could be a reward for Jason, he might not make it.
When we come back, Jason has done a lot of work on his own and we see him on the beach with his family while the team is on hold. What changes have you seen in Jason this season, how have you approached him as a different man?
Yes, the character of Jason, through his treatment for his traumatic brain injury and understanding how he recovered from it, he thinks again that where he is with his family is the right place. Everything starts to fall apart around him.
