Months ahead of its premiere, Paramount+ announced that SEAL Team Season 7 will be the show’s last. The first two episodes debut on August 11 and new installments will drop weekly on Sundays. Although the season 6 finale offers a semblance of closure, there are still plenty of storylines to explore when SEAL Team returns. Following Clay’s death in season 6, Jason comes forward about his TBI, inspiring the brotherhood to open up about their own ailments. Whether command will attempt to take action against the entire team remains to be seen.
SEAL Team made the switch from CBS to Paramount+ during season 5, and star David Boreanaz believes that it was, ultimately, the best move. Boreanaz admitted that the series doesn’t follow the same formula as network television, adding that the creative team didn’t want to sugarcoat Clay’s tragic death. The actor goes on to tease that anything is possible in the final episodes, and Jason may not have the ending that fans expect.
Boreanaz chats with Screen Rant about what to expect when SEAL Team returns for season 7 and looks back at his eight years working on the series
Boreanaz Knew That SEAL Team Season 7 Would Be His Last
Screen Rant: Seven seasons is something to celebrate, especially in today’s world. How do you feel about the series ending? Is now the right time?
David Boreanaz: I’ve been playing this character for eight years and seven seasons, which has been the run of the show. I knew going into the season that it would be my last. I waited for this moment to kind of talk about that. For me, personally, I just saw it as a great time for the character to come full circle for what these special operators go through.
It made sense because of the characters and his relationship to the teams and brotherhood, so I was excited to come to that conclusion. It was something that I had decided before the writers strike had hit, and then the writers strike hit, and things were crazy for a few months, as you know. And then we just decided that was it. I’m excited and humbled that I was able to play a character of this magnitude, but my body thanks me for taking a break and letting this one go.
Clay’s death in season 6 was heartbreaking. How are the characters going to continue to feel that loss through the remainder of the final season?
David Boreanaz: We’ve always said that these men and women, specifically, operators can or can’t make it. We don’t sugar coat it. We don’t play into it as a big soap opera moment in an episode in a series like this. One of the reasons why we were so geared to being more of a streaming outlet than a network show is we just didn’t check those boxes.
The authenticity is always there for a character to be removed—a nicer way of saying being shot or killed, or not making it. I think it’s something that is on the plate for Jason Hayes for the end of the series. We always want to remind the audience that you just don’t know when you’re gonna get hit. I think in today’s world of storytelling, especially with operators, that can happen at any given time.
SEAL Team Season 7 Will Examine How Operators Cope After Their First Kill
Jason spoke up about his TBI, and the team had his back and shared their own trauma. What impact will that have going forward?
David Boreanaz: We’ve examined the TBI, we’ve examined the PTS, his relationships back home, how he balances that. The biggest one that we haven’t examined is how an operator deals with his first kill and beyond that. What kind of trauma that is and, for a lot of these operators, it’s always been the top-tier of the demon, the hardest one to deal with. And so that will reflect heavily on Jason’s character going forward.
It’ll weigh very hard on his mind, which is not balanced with his heart at the beginning. He thinks it is, and he kind of takes some sideline for the first few episodes, but he sees that he is causing more issues at home than he would be and finds that balance may not ever happen. And so he does get back mid-season with the brotherhood and the team, but his fate may not be as happy as some fans would want.
Elaborating on Jason’s home life, what challenges might he continue to face this season when trying to balance his role as a father and a Navy SEAL?
David Boreanaz: They always have that balance and those struggles and those adversities, balance with family life, balance with their relationships, balance with coming back and not getting the love that they deserve from their country. That weighs very heavily on Jason this season and towards the end of the series. I’m excited to take this to his grave, without giving away too many spoilers. [Laughs]
Boreanaz Is Proud That SEAL Team Sheds Light On Military Men And Women
You’ve played so many iconic characters over the years from Angel to Booth, but what have you learned from playing Jason, and what are you going to take with you into future projects?
I will take the sense of consistency, and I will take the trade of discipline, and let that enhance my abilities even more, which I found to be very profound for me for eight years of my life playing this character. It’s exciting because it opens up brand new doors and avenues for me to use those attributes even more so. It’s given me a lot, and I’m so humbled to have received all that from these guys who are the actual guys. It makes me very proud that we, as producers, can put out a series that I feel is very, very underrated and still yet to be discovered by many people.
The biggest reward that I could have, personally, from a show like this, is having these men and or women in the military world say, “Thank you for saving my life. I was going to put a gun in my head and kill myself. I went and reached out for help. Thank you for saving me.” And so we were able to put light in the dark corners and shed that and heal a lot of people. So to me, that’s very important.
I saw that you wrapped filming a couple of months back. You’ve been through series finales before, but how was saying goodbye to another team you’ve worked so closely with for so long?
For me, it was a celebration. It was a huge relief of getting something off my back. All those times of playing a character of this intensity, whether it’s the depression, the manipulation, the pain and the suffering that the character had to endure, it was fantastic to let that go. I celebrated very heavily on the beach with my cast and my crew, and I got everybody bottles of champagne like we literally just won the The World Series or Stanley Cup. We just sprayed champagne all over each other in an effort to enjoy that moment. It was great.
Looking back, do you have a favorite scene from the show? Either because it was fun to film or impactful for the story?
David Boreanaz: Stories are so very impactful in this series. Every episode had its own adversities for the characters. The storytelling was always in-depth. The writing was very true and honest to the profession of being a special operator. The focus was always about doing it the right way, taking that route and not taking any shortcuts. I pride ourselves that we didn’t take shortcuts. I know that if you talk to the rest of the cast, they would feel the same as far as how difficult it was to shoot day in and day out on a show like this. So, humbling for myself.
I take away so many moments, so many times that we laughed, we cried together, that we shared stories together to get insight into these operators’ minds and their hearts and how they struggle. Being able to give back to them was a fantastic journey that will always be a big impact in my heart and something that defines me personally. I was talking earlier about how to use those attributes of overcoming adversities in a project. Very strong moments for me.
The series follows the lives of the Navy SEALs’ most elite unit as they execute dangerous high-stakes operations to defend their country at a deeply personal cost. In the final season, Jason Hayes (Boreanaz) struggles to balance his warrior’s existence with the responsibilities of single fatherhood.
Ray Perry (Brown Jr.), his trusted second in command, questions whether he will be able to leave the battlefield behind as his retirement nears. Dedicated door-kicker Sonny Quinn (Buckley) battles against changing tides as Jason and Ray’s shifting focus means that other teammates must shoulder more responsibility.
