SEAL TEAM Post-Mortem: Spencer Hudnut on the High Stakes Mission and Bravo’s Shaky Trust in Each Other

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the SEAL TEAM season 5 premiere.]

SEAL TEAM kicked off its fifth season by throwing Bravo Team into “the most dangerous country in the world”…North Korea.

Initially, the team thought they were just doing training after having time apart. But they quickly learned they were actually part of a top-secret mission which couldn’t even be divulged to them until after they departed.

The escalation in missions was intentional for the show, as it approaches its final batch of episodes before it moves to Paramount+.

“It felt like there has been a shift in actually the way that the military and special operators have been are being used now,” executive producer Spencer Hudnut says. “There’s kind of a shift from the war on terror to a lot more focus on nations. We’ve done 80 missions already; this felt like a way to keep things fresh. It kind of feels like an old-school operation, [where they’re] not able to use all the normal bells and whistles that they normally bring on their operations. It levels the playing field a little bit.”

“Obviously, the stakes are high—even just beyond life and death—if these guys are even discovered; it would cause an international incident that could really put the world in a very bad spot,” he continues. “So it just felt [exciting] seeing our guys brought together, after being apart, and then taking on such a high-stakes mission, particularly given some of the challenges that they faced. Ray dealing with his PTS. Jason, at the end of last season, had this headache that has Clay very worried. Sonny has his mind back home with his daughter, so how are they gonna react in an environment when there really is no margin for error?”

The team’s strain played into their mission, as Ray (Neil Brown Jr.) was quietly trying to handle his PTS (which keeping it from most of his teammates), while Clay (Max Thieriot) kept his eye on Jason (David Boreanaz) and his memory.

“Trust is such a huge part of how teams operate, and the way that they’re able to move forward in combat knowing and trusting that the person to their right and the person to their left is going to have their back and are operating at full capacity,” Hudnut notes. “And, obviously, at the end of last year, we saw the Ray froze up on the battlefield at a time where one of his teammates was in danger. I think that really caught the attention of Sonny, in particular, but Trent and Brock. And I think for Ray there’s a long way to go to get to regain his teammates’ trust. How do you go into such a high-stakes mission where not everyone feels like they are pulling in the same direction?”

“[And] between Ray’s own troubles and Ray withdrawing from the team a little bit towards the end of season 4, Clay’s really had to step up,” he continues. “He’s really had to fill the void Ray left, because he wasn’t as present as he normally had been. Clay has a lot on his plate. In addition to worrying about his teammate and his mentor, perhaps finally [having] all the combat and all the trauma of having fought this war for 20 years catching up to him, he’s keep keeping one eye on Bravo and one eye on Jason. And this is in addition to all the responsibilities he now has at home. He’s a very full plate and I think we’re just going to keep adding things onto Clay’s plate this season to see how he handles it.”

SEAL TEAM, Sundays, 10/9c, CBS

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