‘SEAL Team’s Showrunner Breaks Down the High-Stakes Series Finale and Saying Goodbye
In the final season of the Paramount+ series SEAL Team, Master Chief Special Warfare Operator Jason Hayes (David Boreanaz) and his elite BRAVO unit of Navy SEALs fought their way off the sidelines and back into the field. A traumatic brain injury and a new team member that shook up the dynamic and caused some tension provided distraction that could have proven deadly. When you’re working to execute dangerous, high-stakes missions, you have to have your head in the game, work as a cohesive team, and not let guilt get the better of you, or war just might have the last word.
During this one-on-one interview with Collider, showrunner Spencer Hudnut broke down what it was like to find out late in the game that Season 7 would be their last and how they adjusted for a series finale. He talked about wanting to have closure for the characters, why he brought Drew (Beau Knapp) into this season, the significance of the Ross Curtis (Mac Brandt) storyline, the biggest production challenge with the finale, pulling off the action sequences, how emotional it was to say goodbye, and his wish that he would have been able to do spinoffs. He’s still also trying to figure out what comes next, now that SEAL Team is finished.
‘SEAL Team’s Showrunner Wishes This Weren’t the End for the David Boreanaz Series
SPENCER HUDNUT: The short answer is that he and I did not have that conversation, ever. I found out in November that this would be the last season. I understand why he probably came to that decision on his own. But the truth is, I started breaking Season 7 in January of 2023. The writers showed up in February and March. Leading up to the strike, we had the whole season broken and we probably had about seven scripts in the works. We came back in early October, we basically had nine scripts done, and I was starting to fiddle around with the season finale. And then, when I was told in early November that was the end of the series, we were five weeks from starting production. I was losing all the writers in five weeks, and we were already locked in to go to Colombia. So, it really gave me only about three acts of the finale to land the plane.
Of course, I was aware that BRAVO Team has been around for a long time. With Season 7, it would be unlikely that everybody would continue forward, so the main characters were already on their journeys of starting to find their off ramps. My goal was to get more seasons. That’s why we introduced the character of Drew. I’ve gotten 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, much like Omar, in case the baton needs to get passed to the next generation of BRAVO Team, to really build those guys up as the season progressed, to a point where people are really interested in those guys, in case they take a more prominent role. As much as I never would want to do a SEAL Team episode without David, part of the job is to keep the show going. That was a challenge that I thought we would face, but we’re not.
