SEAL Team Boss Breaks Down 'The Hardest Decision I've Had To Make On This Series, By A Long Shot'
The following contains major spoilers from the Nov. 6 episode of SEAL Team, now streaming on Paramount+.
In the eighth episode of SEAL Team Season 6, life outside the wire was starting to look really good for Clay Spenser (played by Max Thieriot), as he suggested to wife Stella (Alona Tal) that they blow up their family's three-foot world, put Vah Beach in the rear view mirror and start themselves a new life far removed from him not operating, Green Team et al.
But not since Clay told Jason ahead of the Mali op that he planned to pause operating has a red flag waved so high. Clay's sweet confab with Stella was interrupted by a call from Ben, the despondent guy he met at Ray and Naima's vet center the week prior. Clay headed out into the night and found Ben about to vandalize an Armed Forces recruitment center. And when Clay talked Ben out of trashing the place, Ben pulled out a pistol to aim at his own head.
Clay deftly managed to talk Ben out of ending his life, and took the gun from his hand. But then a security guard's flashlight suddenly illuminated the men, revealing the gun in Clay's one hand, and a frightened-looking Ben in the other. The guard quickly pumped two bullets into Clay, who fell to the ground and died on the spot, as Ben slipped off into the night.
"Easy day."
In the wake of screening this week's episode, TVLine hopped on the phone with showrunner Spencer Hudnut, to talk about how series vet Thieriot's new Fire Country role influenced Clay's fate, and how Bravo will process this bombshell while heading into a highly dangerous missing spanning the two-part season finale (streaming Nov. 13 and 20).
TVLINE | Spencer, my feelings about you right now as a showrunner are very complicated.
Yes, I can imagine. That's how I feel at times about myself, so....
TVLINE | CBS ordered the pilot for Max's Fire Country in early February, it was ordered to series in mid-May. At what point in the development process for that show did this SEAL Team "off-ramp" start taking shape?
It really started toward the end of Season 5; there were some questions about whether Max would be back for Season 6, so the Season 5 cliffhanger [in Mali] was a bit dictated by that. And as Fire Country kept passing each development checkmark, it got clearer and clearer that there was a real possibility that we'd be losing Max at some point. So for the storyline we came up with for Clay this season, we knew we'd have to keep him separate from the team to maximize how much we could get out of Max before he left.
'Fire Country'
In terms of the decision [to kill off Clay].... I really was kicking the can down the road as far as possible, hoping that Max wouldn't be leaving the show, and that we would keep him. It wasn't until maybe even a month after Fire Country got picked up [to series] that it became clear that Max was leaving. Everyone had talked about how he could do both shows, but it was very clear that that wasn't the case.
TVLINE | That as ambitious as Max aspired to be, it simply wasn't tenable.
It wasn't. He's shooting [Fire Country] up in Vancouver, he's the star of that show, we were in second position.... Our seasons don't line up, and we're now doing short orders.... Right now I'm sitting here breaking Season 7, so how could I incorporate Clay not knowing if/when/how we could get him back? It really wasn't until after Fire Country got greenlit to series that we had to confront this reality, and at that point we had already broken most of the season and written half of it. We were a bit boxed in.
TVLINE | So... there was a scenario where CBS' Fire Country is DOA upon premiering and Max winds up out of two jobs.
That was a possibility, but truthfully I've had a ton of faith in Fire Country ever since Max first talked to me about it. It's a great show. If I had thought it had a chance of tanking, I may have made a different decision about Clay's fate, but I'm fully confident that that show is going to air for years on CBS. I'm really proud of Max and excited for him, but at the end of the day I have to do what's best for SEAL Team, and it felt like if he was going to leave, having his departure have the biggest impact on the show and on the team was my responsibility. But [killing off Clay] was the hardest decision I've had to make on this series, by a long shot.
TVLINE | Let's talk about that "impact." The way you killed off Clay was BRUTAL. Discuss.
Yes, it is shocking and it's horrible and it's an accident, but it was really important to me that Clay, in my mind, died a hero. He saves Ben from making a horrible decision, he saves Ben from taking his own life, and he comes full circle from the Swanny storyline in Season 2, but here he's able to succeed. It is brutal, it is shocking, and I think that juxtaposed to how he was injured on the battlefield, to go out by himself is really painful. And because of the way he dies, it's going to have a different impact on his teammates than when they've lost people in the line of fire in the past. (Press play above for a promo for next week.)
TVLINE | I mean, I was devastated watching this, even knowing ahead of time that it was a "big" episode I'd want to talk to you about afterwards. I can only imagine how the fans will react.
No, I'm sure they'll have a powerful reaction and be upset. And it is upsetting. But it's upsetting that veterans come home to find that it's not just on the battlefield where terrible things happen. The idea that Clay could just ride off into the sunset felt like it wouldn't have a big an impact on the team. We're so into veteran issues, and he's a guy who has dealt with a traumatic injury and has to deal with not operating anymore. We showed him have some pitfalls and he had a long road ahead, so to just have him leave and feel like that's not a story worth covering anymore felt disingenuous to what the show is. And it allows us to explore what happens in these communities when someone falls. You see how people rally round Stella and Brian.... It opens up storytelling.
TVLINE | If I'm going to be honest, I don't want to see Stella get this news. I almost want a "Three Months Later" and maybe she pops up now and again.
People will see how it plays out in the coming episodes, but yeah, it's horrible. War is horrible, and unfortunately it has to seep into our show now and again.
TVLINE | What do you want to say about how and Bravo receives this news?
The irony is that Jason and Omar have bonded finally, so Bravo Team, as we'll see [next week], is clicking in a way they haven't been all season. They're feeling good about themselves, feeling hopeful that Clay had gotten himself straightened out.... Again, these guys are prepared to lose any teammate at any moment on the battlefield. But to think that someone is safe at home with their wife and child and then get that news is going to be a gut punch for them. (Press play above for a promo for next week.)
TVLINE | Alright, give us something to cheer us up after all this....
Well, I think that Clay's loss gives some new perspective to our guys, and it motivates them to make some decisions that are surprising in the coming episodes. I also think that part of what makes these guys so different from the rest of us is they do have to compartmentalize, and they have a really big mission coming up that they have to take on.... It's a lot of what we shot in Jordan, and it really shows how they have to shut off their emotional side when they're in a kinetic operation. They're faced with a mission that if it goes wrong could really have global consequences, and it's really a nail-biter.
TVLINE | Lastly, I wanted to say that I've really enjoyed what you've done with Lisa's (played by Toni Trucks) storyline this season. Do I read it right, that even though Sonny is pissed at her right now, she is eventually going to dig into the Mali coverup?
Sonny is so reactive, always, and so emotional. [Chuckles] Finding out who was responsible for Clay losing his leg is obviously priority No. 1 for him, but Lisa has a massive responsibility as an officer, so in the moment she prioritized getting these guys back into the hunt for the people responsible for killing 20 American sailors. But there is no doubt that finding the person responsible for what happened to Clay is of equal importance to her. She is always part of the Bravo family, and she will find a way to fight justice for them.
Want scoop on SEAL Team's final two episodes of Season 6, or for any other show? Email InsideLine@tvline.com and your question may be answered via Matt's Inside Line.