SEAL Team returns with four episodes before moving to its new home on Paramount+. SEAL Team Season 5 Episode 1 is all about setting up the conflicts for SEAL Team Season 5, as well as revealing the significant strides our favorite characters have made in their lives in the three months since SEAL Team Season 4 ended.
We’ll start with Jason because it looks like the years of taking down bad guys are starting to catch up with him. The Jason we know and love was very much present throughout “Trust, But Verify: Part 1,” but there were also hints that the headache was a sign of something much worse, and frankly, Clay should have been more explicit about that.
Yes, Clay wants to be the loving friend and make sure his friend and mentor is safe, but what if, heaven forbid, something goes wrong on the battlefield and Jason’s condition manifests itself in a deadly way? These characters have all been through trouble in the past, and part of the beauty of this show is that it deals with the hurdles these characters face with incredible realism.
Jason won’t be impressed when Clay calls him out to their superiors and says he believes there’s a problem because Jason will be on desk duty until he’s tested, which Jason doesn’t want. Unfortunately, we’re going to reach a point of no return for Jason, and the consequences of whatever happens could have a huge impact on the rest of his career. What’s more worrying is how it will affect those who don’t come clean.
Clay figured out that Jason forgot something early in the premiere, so it was hard to watch Jason go on this mission with the team. Clay being happily married was a big step forward, and now the hard part will be how he and Stella navigate this new layer in their relationship, especially when his free time is cut short to go on a mission in North Korea. Stella has been understanding up until now, and she knows about Jason’s illness, so we can expect Clay to continue to confide in her about his issues with his friend.
Ray’s PTSD is another great storyline because many shows and movies have overlooked it, but SEAL Team is here to give us a full portrait of someone who is truly suffering. It’s hard not to worry about Ray because he really should explain to his bosses that he’s still struggling.
Yes, he’ll be out of the field until he’s in a better mental state, but keeping it away from his team means he could also be the reason for a major breakdown in the mission. Jason wants his friend to stay on the team, but it was a bad decision to tell him to keep quiet about his fight.
Suppressing things only works for so long. There’s always a tipping point, and I don’t have high hopes for this first mission to be a success. Neil Brown Jr. has done a really good job in every episode, but this different side of Ray is welcome because it gives the actor something new to work with while still doing a pretty good job of portraying PTSD on the small screen.
Sonny as a father is impressive. He’s always been a tough guy, but now that he has a kid, his outlook on life has changed in ways I didn’t think possible. The show has really found interesting ways to shake things up for these characters, and this new direction for Sonny is very welcome.
His speech about wanting three things in life, one of which is Davis, hit a nerve with me, and it was made worse when Davis said there was no future for those things.
Did anyone else immediately wonder how he would react after being told he was deployed two weeks early?
He would have been hit like a ton of bricks. His priorities have changed, and maybe we could see him change his perspective on working with the Bravo Team. He’ll be worried about whether he’ll make it home after going into such dangerous conditions, and that could be his driving force throughout the first part of the season.
This mission is harrowing because it’s like the calm before the storm, and their discovery in this base could be detrimental to their escape. The ending is thrilling. This is a four-episode season, there’s always some big twist to take the story in a different direction.
Something tells me that Jason’s not shooting unless you have to is going to change quickly because Kwan has been captured and their being in the base could be about to be discovered, there’s going to be a search for them. The tricky part here is that there’s no one else to help them. All extras part of the team?
