Stream It Or Skip It: ‘SEAL Team’ Season 6 on Paramount+, Where David Boreanaz And Co. Deal With The Stress Of Warfighting And Homefront Living

The return of SEAL Team for its sixth season and second on Paramount+ is a clarification that there’s still life in the weathered warfighting bones of Bravo Team and their evolving personal lives. And that’ll be reassuring for longtime fans, since season five ended with them literally being blown up. There was also the question of co-star Max Theriot’s return to the show, since he’s the star and an executive producer and co-creator of the upcoming CBS drama Fire Country. Stil, nothing’s guaranteed as SEAL Team Season 6 begins, and the smoke clears on that cliffhanger ending…

SEAL TEAM: SEASON 6: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “Bravo this is Havoc; radio check, over…” In the immediate seconds after the IED blast that struck the team’s convoy at the close of season five, nobody’s moving on the X. But Master Chief Jason Hayes (David Boreanz) comes to as enemy rounds ping off the surrounding dearth and twisted remains of their vehicles, and soon everyone’s back in the fight. “Put some fire on that ridgeline!”

The Gist: Well, almost everyone. As Ray (Neil Brown, Jr.), Sonny (AJ Buckley), and Brock (Justin Melnick) engage the enemy on the rocks above and Jason dodges RPG’s on the way to flank their position, Clay (Max Theriot) lies in the center of the roadway, his right leg destroyed below the knee. He tends to his own tourniquet, pushes the compound fracture back inside what’s left of his muscle mass, wraps it all in a field dressing, and fashions an air splint from battle debris and his water bladder. He’s definitely not good as new, but he’s still in the firefight, and pretty soon he’s lobbing hand grenades at the bad guys while Jason calls in a Hellfire strike.

With a busted-up Bravo’s medical evacuation to Germany, it’s up to Lieutenant Lisa Davis (Toni Trucks) to head stateside and break the news of Clay’s injuries to his wife Stella (Alona Tal). She holds their newborn and sobs. It’s the cruel metric of warfare that it was this mission that got him, when Clay had promised Stella and told Jason that he was leaving Bravo after the op. As everyone waits for an update on Clay, they gather at the home of Ray and Naima (Parisa Fakrhi).

Clay’s infected leg wound is bad enough, but it’s his internal injuries that have doctors really worried. They can’t help him further, and being in the hospital only highlights their own issues with trauma and chronic injury, so Bravo Team heads home to join their loved ones with Sonny posted bedside. Jason rejoins Mandy (Jessica Pare), and while it’s clear the relationship they rekindled last season remains strong, Jason is wracked with anger and guilt over allowing Clay to join the operation. Call Stella if it’s good news about Clay, he tells Sonny. But call me if it isn’t. And pretty soon his phone rings.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? With its ensemble cast, consistent toggling between homefront and frontline, and membership status in the CBS universe, SEAL Team often feels like an update of The Unit, David Mamet’s series of the mid-2000’s that featured Dennis Haysbert, Max Martini, and Michael Irby as US Army special operators with warfighting and homelife stresses similar to the members of Bravo. And SEAL Team also shares aesthetic DNA with Six, the Naval Special Warfare drama that lasted two seasons on History and featured a standout performance from Walton Goggins.

Our Take: While it’s Clay who’s seriously injured as SEAL Team Season 6 begins, nearly every Bravo Team principal remains the walking wounded. For Jason, the acknowledgement that his traumatic brain injury is serious business seems to have curdled into a refusal to address it further, general irritability, and doubtful assurances that everything’s fine. In Germany, the doctor who treated him before doesn’t sugar coat it: by not seeking treatment, Jason is avoiding the fear of losing his SEAL Trident. While Ray buoys the team’s morale in the wake of Clay’s injury, his wife Naima prods him to process Bravo’s latest adversity as part of the ongoing management of his post-traumatic stress. And though Sonny stayed by Clay’s side and promised his best friend that he’d look after his family if he didn’t make it, he crumbles at the sight of Clay coding, and rails against all of what the team has endured. “We used to be the baddest sled dogs around. When did Bravo become a fucking bomb magnet?”

It doesn’t matter if you’re the greatest, most badass operator there ever was. The best training and the best plan don’t survive enemy contact forever, and after six seasons of Bravo Team operations, these guys are seriously feeling the effects. It’s a powerful storyline for SEAL Team to explore as it moves forward, especially in light of Lieutenant Davis’s last season white paper to the Navy brass concerning warfighter safety, and in the real world, the war on terror’s continued strain on the special operations community. SEAL Team’s traditional format, dichotomy between harm’s way and homefront, and men of war brio isn’t for everyone. But it continues to respect what its characters are going through, and the real world factors that inform their dramas.

Sex and Skin: Negative.

Parting Shot: “Clay’s been stabilized,” Jason tells Stella and the other families gathered at Ray and Naima’s, but his face is a grim mask. “The infection was spreading,” he continues, “so the doctors did what they had to do to save his life.” And we rejoin Clay in a recovery room at the military hospital in Germany. His right leg has been amputated below the knee.

Sleeper Star: Her character is often stuck in a command center reacting to the action in the field – “I read you lima charlie” – or sitting in a conference room or office and meeting the requirements of plot exposition. But Toni Trucks still manages to elevate the role of Lieutenant Lisa Davis in most every scene she’s in.

Most Pilot-y Line: As their brother-in-arms remains in surgery, the team stews in the hospital waiting area. “After everything that Clay’s done for me, it shoulda been me eating those RPG’s,” Sonny fumes. But Ray rejects that with a larger point about the fraught narrative they’ve chosen. “You’ve got no say in that, brother,” he tells Sonny. “War always has the last word.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. There was some question about the return of SEAL Team after the explosive cliffhanger ending of season five. But its sixth go-round seems primed to focus on the ever-increasing personal toll of the war on terror, and to stay true to the characters its core cast have developed over the series’ run.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges