[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for S.W.A.T. Season 7 Episode 12 “Allegiance.”]
Is it just us, or does it feel like S.W.A.T. is taking us one step closer with each episode to Deacon (Jay Harrington) returning to 20-Squad? And we’re counting those before he officially retired, too!
Deacon pitches in to help the team in the season’s penultimate episode (which Harrington also directed), and it’s clear that he’s struggling to not be with his team. He admits he still finds himself waking up in the middle of the night and grabbing his phone, convinced he missed a call. He’s even taken to turning his phone off at night, as he does near the end of this episode after admitting to his wife Annie (Bre Blair), “I think it might have been too soon for me to go back.”
The episode also sees Hondo (Shemar Moore) facing backlash from the public after shooting a Black suspect (his weapon is found on the scene). As he steps outside his house at the end (and tries calling Deacon, only to get his voicemail), he finds that someone has written “GET OUT PIG” and “Sell Out” on the sidewalk.
Below, Harrington previews the Season 7 finale, talks about Deacon’s future, looks ahead to Season 8 (“I’m happy to have a little time off, but I’m actually very happy to get back to work soon”), and more.
Michael Yarish / 2024 CBS Entertainment Inc.
The way that Annie was watching Deacon could suggest she’s thinking maybe he should go back to S.W.A.T. At this point, is he at all thinking about that possibility?
Jay Harrington: I think in the back of his mind always. He did what he did because he thought it was the right thing for her and for family. And it’s what you start to see in [Episode] 12 and then in 13, our finale, is that he’s got reservations as anyone does when they retire, I would imagine. But you start to see it play in her of maybe we got to really take a step back and look and this is who this guy is and we’ll see what we can do.
Deacon is aware Hondo is trying to find the right mix but there’s so much tension in 20-Squad right now. How much is that weighing on Deacon, that maybe he should be coming back because of that and he knows how much Hondo has relied on him?
And we saw it in a couple episodes ago that Larry Teng directed when we were taking over the house of the doomsday preppers, where I have this guilt of letting him down. Not only did he find out not how I wanted, but I don’t want to make anything harder on him. So when I start to see the tension with Alfaro [Niko Pepaj] and Tan [David Lim] and Powell [Anna Enger Ritch], it’s like, this can all be fixed if I just was standing there giving them a harsh look of, hey, zip it. But that’s where for me, this episode, I get to play a little bit of being not sure where my place is and how much I should say or can say because I don’t work there anymore. I think it all really comes together nicely and the tension plays right into the finale, where that all will come together. But also just the scope of the story itself is really big and there’s a lot going on.
Is Deacon speaking to anyone as he’s making a decision? There was great stuck with Hicks (Patrick St. Esprit) earlier this season. Is there more of that in the finale?
Without going too much into the finale about story, it’s an all hands on deck situation in the city of LA where we find a team that’s been compromised basically. And we cleared this with Otis [Gallop], our tech advisor. Sometimes even when you’re retired, you can drop in and you’re still eligible. It’s not been that long, it’s not like I’ve lost a step, but I’m there to assist, not just like in [Episode] 12 where I’m given some advice or telling them, I know a guy, but this is more hands-on. Hicks has called me at home and said, “Can you come in today? We could really use the help.” And it goes from there and you’ll see Deacon’s struggles and it’s going to be a doozy.
Shemar told me that nothing about the finale was changed after the uncancellation, and you talked about getting ready to go back to work, means you’ll be in Season 8. So what can you say about where the finale leaves Deacon? Has he made a decision?
Deacon has made a decision 100 percent, with family and with himself and himself. When he said nothing’s changed, it’s true. The way the writers crafted this entire 13 episodes was really, really interesting because they didn’t want it to be—not just because there’s a chance we could come back, but sometimes in shows when they just end and they tie it all into this bow and it’s perfect, yeah, you want to do that in some way, but these guys, SWAT officers, they’re special. So they really wanted the idea of, the show must go on and it’s a job that doesn’t go away and we don’t lose them. They crafted it very, very smartly, I think.
What have you enjoyed most about who Deacon is this season?
I was talking to [executive producer] Andy Dettmann earlier actually today about, they’ve really given me such a strong playbook over the years and then specifically this year, the retirement angle, there’s a lot to play with there, and you could just call on it in real life. It’s almost like, alright, well this show’s over, we’re going to be in a sense retiring. So I kind of had all that to play with and the duty to the job and to the team was big. But also my duty at home to wife and kids was such a great parallel thing to play off of. There’s some conflict there. So I get lucky. I tell them every year they really write great stuff for me
What are your hopes for Deacon in Season 8?
I hope that his team can get their act together and I’m going to leave it to those guys what their ideas are, but I can safely say, I’m not going anywhere. So it’ll be just nice to be back and see where that takes us.
Have there been any conversations yet about you directing again in Season 8?
I have had conversations, yes, certainly. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s a challenge, but I really enjoy it. I have so many photos from the episode and so many of them are the crew right there, and you don’t see that side of it when you’re watching a show. You don’t see how much goes into it, but you’re setting up a sequence and there’s 60 people behind you, and every one of them is so good at what they do and they work so hard. You can’t do it without an extraordinary group of people behind you. And we’ve had basically the same group for all these years. So it’s a challenge, but I love doing it.
S.W.A.T., Fridays, 8/7c, CBS