[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the SEAL Team series finale “The Last Word.”]
SEAL Team ended its seven-season run with a hopeful series finale, one that made it easy to imagine where these characters could go next and without another tragic loss. But what would we have seen if there had been more?
Most of the seventh season saw Jason (David Boreanaz) grappling with what he’s done as a result of war, resulting in him going to see the wife of the first man he killed in Afghanistan. We did not see that conversation—he instead relayed it to Ray (David Boreanaz) and Sonny (A.J. Buckley)—and that’s because, as executive producer Spencer Hudnut tells TV Insider, the original plan, before knowing this was the final season, was to end with Jason going to see the wife with Mandy (Jessica Paré).
“If we came back in a Season 8, they would find themselves in some serious trouble where the team needed to figure out a way to get themselves back together and get them out of that trouble,” he reveals.
Hudnut also had plans for Omar (Raffi Barsoumian) and Drew (Beau Knapp) in an eighth season. He had wanted to put Omar on the journey to try to reconnect with his son, and there was more backstory for Drew that didn’t make it into this season.
“The reality is just the economics and what happens to a show after Season 7. I think as we were breaking this season, we kind of knew there was not a world where everybody was going to come back. And so I think you’ll notice that in the season, Drew obviously is a big part of the first half of the season, but we start really getting into Omar later in the season, to make people really want to learn more about him so that when we came back into a potential next season that Omar and Drew could pick up, do a lot of heavy lifting if some of the other characters didn’t return,” the EP explains. “We were just trying to keep the show going as long as we could, but we are very happy with where we’re leaving everybody if this is the end.”
Could these characters come back in some way in the future? Revivals have become more common (and there had even been talk of a movie at one point during the show’s run).
“Never say never. I kept telling everyone all season, the first show I ever worked on [Unforgettable] got canceled three times before it finally went away,” says Hudnut. “I’m like, this is just the first time, so I’m ready. I’m ready to go on Season 8 here. But David’s spoken about he’d be open to it. I’m very happy with where we leave these characters.”
He continues, “I love working with this cast. I love working with this crew. I love working with my writing staff and so any excuse to get that group back together, I would embrace it.”
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SEAL Team, Complete Series, Streaming Now, Paramount+