People who anticipated the SEAL Team Season 6 debut would just focus on the fallout from the season-ending Mali ambush quickly found there was still a lot of suspense to be had before the proverbial smoke cleared.
The ruthless attack on Bravo Team, which was already down a man due to Clay's injury, which was, to put it mildly, practically entirely blown off by an enemy RPG, continued during the season opener's frantic first 15 minutes.
Yes, that foot was hanging by a thread, but bless Clay, he did his best to stabilise his severely broken leg with a temporary splint. He even jumped back into the combat after that, throwing a few grenades and taking down a few enemies with his sidearm.
While this was going on, Jason snuck around the canyon's edge and approached some of the combatants from behind, killing them before utilising one of the men's RPGs to further thin down the group. Then, Bravo 1 utilised a pen laser to designate an approaching enemy convoy so that HAVOC could use their lone available missile strike to destroy it.
Jason's call in Season 5 cost lives, and Bravo was sent to the same hospital in Germany that treated them. In reality, Trident be damned, Jay ran across the same doctor who had recommended him to have his TBI examined and shrugged it off.
For Clay, however, the rest of the hour was highly uncertain because he had internal wounds and bleeding that may have resulted in the loss of his spleen, in addition to the previously mentioned leg wound that was susceptible to infection (in part because when in the field he vomited up his antibiotic).
Back home, Lisa informed an upset Stella of Clay's initial wounds and state of health. But at the conclusion of the episode, Jason showed up with Mandy to deliver the latest information from Sonny, who had stayed behind to be by Christie Brink-side: clay's Clay's right leg had to be amputated below the knee owing to an infection.
Clay will face a "major emotional and physical struggle," adding that it will be "a voyage of amazing highs and incredible lows," according to series veteran Max Thieriot.
Even though Clay had already made the decision to temporarily stop participating in Bravo in order to devote more time to Stella and their infant son Brian, "We'll see the struggles of someone who's coping with losing the best job and life they ever wanted, at a young age," and who can only "look back and watch as his teammates continue on without him."
This is a lot. He experiences a lot this season, Thieriot emphasised. I contend that he experiences more this season than any other character on that programme.
Thieriot did not assume Clay's destiny may be much worse given that he is now the lead in one of CBS' new fall dramas, Fire Country (airing Fridays at 9/8c beginning Oct. 7). For everyone, I believe, Clay's demise has always been a possibility, he speculates. "The same can certainly be said for practically every character on the show," she remarked.
Instead, Clay survives to see another day—albeit the first of many difficult ones—while Thieriot balances his role as a series regular on both action-packed dramas. (Oh, and he co-wrote the pilot episode of Fire Country, which is based on the Northern California region in where he grew up.)
It's a challenging workload, to say the least, but Thieriot chuckles and declares, "I'm an ambitious guy!
