[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for SEAL Team Season 7 Episode 4 “Heroes and Criminals.”]
There’s some pushback with a decision Jason (David Boreanaz) makes in the latest SEAL Team episode as Bravo targets a factory in Myanmar tied to China and fentanyl production—but who exactly is he protecting?
That’s the question Ray (Neil Brown Jr.) poses at the end. Jason refuses to allow the team to attempt their mission until he’s sure he minimizes the risk; then things go wrong during the heist part—if they take away the workers’ money, no one will be working when they make their move—and they have to get creative. It works, but when it’s all done, Ray comments on his out-of-character behavior and asks who he really was protecting because he knows it wasn’t Bravo. Jason doesn’t answer.
“I think he was protecting himself for sure,” Boreanaz told TV Insider when he recently stopped by our office. (Watch the video interview above.) “We’ll see the progression of his character from the start to the end of the season is really questioning his purpose and where he belongs. Does he really belong back home and trying to get that balance with his family and this is his new life with his daughter and trying to understand that relationship with Mandy? What does that mean? Is that really true happiness for him or is he really struggling not being out there with his boys?”
He continued, “That really has been the tone of the show, is that drive. We will see how that kind of unfolds going out of [Episode] 4 into 5 and 6 because 6 is a very powerful episode that I directed and it deals with something that happens back home personally to him that he feels like, this happened because I was here. And he’ll wear that guilt and it’ll be fun to see what happens to him from there.”
Ray is preparing for retirement (and counting down the days), and that includes making sure Omar (Raffi Barsoumian) is ready to truly take over keeping an eye on Jason. Jason, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be doing the same. Is he ready for the day when he doesn’t have Ray with him on a mission?
“I think where he is struggling the most is, will Jason truly have himself when he is on a mission?” admits Boreanaz. “Ray is his go-to, and he’s so concerned about getting him across the finish line, and that will really unfold as we get towards the end of the season. You’ll see even more questionable calls, not only from me but from Ray as well.”
With the show ending with its current seventh season, Boreanaz hopes it’s remembered “for its dedication, its discipline, its consistency to efficiency. The movement of the energy was always dialed in, the brotherhood. I feel it was a type of show that really was underrated in a lot of ways. We shot just amazing stunt sequences that I think are parallel to major films out there.”
Watch the full video interview with Boreanaz above about this episode, how the show will end, knowing he was done, his last day on set, what he wants to do next, and much more.
SEAL Team, Sundays, Paramount+