'SEAL Team' Series Finale Recap: Door Open For More

SPOILER ALERT: The following article contains spoilers from Sunda’s series finale of CBS‘ SEAL Team.

With a final episode aired Sunday, Oct. 6, the CBS Studios military drama SEAL Team has come to a close. Spanning seven seasons about an elite unit of U.S. Navy SEALs across CBS and Paramount+, it was one of the few series to bridge the gap between networks and streamers.

After a successful mission end in the penultimate episode of SEAL Team Season 7, which resulted in the capture of a major fentanyl drug trader and elimination of a Green Beret traitor, Jason Hayes (David Boreanaz) and Team Bravo head home to Virginia Beach. But the reprieve with family, as they process the intense events of the season, is short-lived, with the unit deployed to Afghanistan for one final mission.

Throughout the tenth episode, Jason struggles to reconcile with the copious amounts of blood on his hands, making the wedding preparation for daughter Emma (Kerri Medders) triggering. After the Afghanistan delivery is completed, Ray Perry (Neil Brown Jr.) and Sonny Quinn (AJ Buckley) accompany Hayes on a side trip to the wife of the first person he killed in an act of atonement. Soon, however, the trio’s vehicle is bombarded, as their extraction goes haywire.

When the screen fades into black, a momentary fake-out seems to show a church gathering — possibly a funeral? However, audiences are soon able to breathe easy with the trio very much having survived the mission, as Jason leads his daughter down the aisle as she weds to Brad (Brandon Butler). With the festivities underway, it seems Jason has washed his hands of his past, signaling a new beginning.

So, where do the main characters end up? Lisa Davis (Toni Trucks) secures her promotion after a sacrifice by Sonny, who admits to punching Decker in front of the investigative committee, ceding his SEAL trident. The two are last seen driving together and holding hands. Meanwhile, Ray turns out to be the Bravo member who takes the Head of Warfighter Health position at DEVGRU. And while the episode makes it seem that Jason is also stepping away from the battlefield, a final scene shows the character back up in the chopper with the younger contingent of the SEAL crew, his final words “Easy f—ing day!” closing out the show.

“I hope the legacy is that we told an authentic story,” showrunner Spencer Hudnut told TVLine of SEAL Team’s end. “It wasn’t a recruiting video, but it also wasn’t a politically slanted view of the military. We tried to tell the real story of our men and women in uniform, and the true meaning of sacrifice.”

With no one killed off in the finale, and an overall uplifting ending that is ripe with possibilities and new beginnings, it’s possible for the procedural’s story to be revisited in the future. As previously noted, a stand-alone movie was announced in 2022, which hasn’t seen much headway. We hear it’s not dead, though it is not currently moving along the process to come to fruition.

All episodes of SEAL Team are streaming on Paramount+.

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