Throughout its seven-season run, SEAL Team brought the realities of war and being a SEAL to life. The series didn’t shy away from some of the hardest elements of serving and putting your life on the line for the country, even showing that not all SEALs make it home. However, the deaths didn’t all happen in the field, with some of them affecting civilians back home or taking place on training exercises.
While we lost many beloved characters, we didn’t see some of those deaths coming, even up to the end of SEAL Team season 7. The writers offered us no hints in many cases, deciding to showcase the realities of the life of a SEAL and a veteran. At the same time, accidents can happen, and some deaths made us wonder if anyone would be safe, including the main characters of SEAL Team.
10. Alana Hayes
Home Isn’t Always The Safest Place in SEAL Team
There is only one way to start this list, and it’s with Alana Hayes, the wife of Jason Hayes. When it comes to the life of a SEAL, their families know that there’s a chance they won’t come back. Jason’s family routinely had to deal with that, and they hated that they would never know if their last moment together would be the final one. What Jason never thought would happen was the death of someone back home, and we certainly weren’t ready to lose someone off-screen in such a traumatic way.
The beautiful storytelling and directing in this episode added layers of stress and grief, as we watched Jason break down in ways we’d never seen happen before.
9. Clay Spenser
Clay Deserved A Life With His Family
Considering the many brushes against death Clay faced throughout SEAL Team, we never really expected him to be killed off. He had been through traumatic moments, including the loss of his leg, and he had finally found a way to push through the darkness of his mind to help other people. The impact of Clay’s death in SEAL Team became another reminder that it’s not just those on missions in the middle of a war zone who put their lives on the line, and it took its toll on Jason in the final season of SEAL Team.
Clay had been trying to help a veteran named Ben, who was suffering mentally. Clay had been through something similar to this earlier in the series, and it wasn’t surprising to see him attempt to save Ben’s life to avoid the same fate. There was hope as well, if only it wasn’t for the security guard who didn’t know the situation that was playing out. As the security guard acted on impulse, believing Clay was the threat, all we could do was watch in disbelief as Clay died, meaning that quitting his job to be with his family was in vain.
8. Hannah Parsons
A Look At How Innocent Civilians Are Hurt
The early days of SEAL Team wanted us to feel like nobody was safe, and that was certainly the case with Hannah Parsons’ story. She was an NGO worker in Sudan who had been harassed by Richard Crowley and had managed to escape him, only to end up with her life on the line. She and her driver were stopped at a checkpoint, where they were both ambushed.
We had barely come to know the aid worker before her death, but Hannah and her driver were found murdered outside the U.S. Embassy, making it clear that others were in danger. This death led to Bravo Team moving into Sudan to get other aid workers out, but it did let us know quickly that Bravo Team wouldn’t always be able to save people. Being so early on in the series, in just the fifth episode, the writers made sure we knew to expect the unexpected.
7. Brian Armstrong
A Training Event Gone Wrong
As he jumped out of his plane, his parachute failed to open, and all everyone could do was watch as the incident led to his death. There was that moment of hope that the second chute would open, saving Brian’s life at the last minute, but instead, the series remained realistic. Yes, these types of accidents do happen, but they’re rarely talked about, and this death was made so much worse because Brian was a great soldier and deserved to have a glowing career.
6. Brett Swann
The Traumatic Life Of A Vet
While shocking, Brett “Swanny” Swann’s death in SEAL Team is also one of the most heartbreaking. This was one of those deaths I wasn’t sure if the series would go through with. As someone with military experience, I saw all the signs Brett would take his own life, but I hoped that someone would be able to step in and help him first.
All Clay could do was watch as every doctor failed Brett to the point that he felt he had no other choice, and we were left watching with mouths open as Clay raced in vain to save him.
5. Ross Curtis
A Final Shocking Death In SEAL Team
Throughout the final season of SEAL Team, there were questions about the side that Ross Curtis was really on. He fed a story about being a DEA informant, but by the penultimate episode, we learned he was a traitor. Curtis’ storyline was important for Jason’s final arc in SEAL Team season 7, as it showed what the guilt of killing people in the name of country can do to a person.
Of course, we expected Jason to be the one to kill Curtis out of revenge for his traitorous actions in the SEAL Team series finale. However, Jason realized that he couldn’t do it and started to walk away, but this would have meant that Jason would have to face consequences for not going through with orders. As Drew realized this, it shockingly led to him killing Curtis so that Jason didn’t have to live with more guilt.
4. Scott “Full Metal” Carter
The First Major Loss In The Show
One thing that made this death so shocking was that it was the first time a long-standing member of the team had died. While the series had opened with the loss of a Bravo Team member, Nate Massey, we hadn’t come to know him all that well. With the way Bravo Team worked together by this point, it seemed almost impossible that the series would write out one of the team, and it happened all because of some shrapnel from an RPG blast. The fear Full Metal felt at the end of his life made his death haunting.
3. Nicole Marsden
Bravo Team Can’t Save Everyone
During SEAL Team season 3, Clay started to lose his faith in the politics of the military. That was until he met U.S. Ambassador Nicole Marsden, whom he and the rest of Bravo Team had been sent to protect and extract from a war zone. Nicole wasn’t someone to just step back from a fight, and she did what she could to continue to protect those around her politically.
The shocking moment was seeing a missile drop on the building she was in, and while she initially survived the hit, she died of her injuries before a medical team could arrive.
2. Adam Seaver
A Shocking But Heroic Death
Sudden deaths don’t need to happen due to accidents or stray shrapnel. Some of the deaths that have happened in SEAL Team have been those that we can see coming, but we just don’t know how they’re going to play out. The shock factor for Adam Seaver’s death came from the poetic way the story developed, taking us back to the start. After being ambushed during a mission, it was clear that someone would have to be injured and potentially killed, but the way the events unfolded made many of us sit up and take notice.
1. Nate Massey
What A Way To Start The Series
When TV shows want to prove that nobody is safe, they do it by killing off a character. Usually, it is a character played by an actor who is well-known, and that’s something SEAL Team did. The Originals fans were ready to see Daniel Gillies back on our screens, and then it was just for a brief moment in the series premiere. He did eventually return via flashbacks, but it wasn’t quite what we had hoped.
Nate Massey’s death was one of those brutal moments that forced audiences to confront the realities of war. Jason hadn’t expected to find out that his friend had been shot as they raced to the boat, and it was only as he saw Nate’s blood on his leg that he realized something had happened. This would catapult Jason’s personal development throughout the first season of SEAL Team.
