‘SEAL Team’: Will Bravo Fail Because Jason Doesn’t Trust Omar? (RECAP)
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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for SEAL Team Season 6 Episode 5 “Thunderstruck.”]
Can Jason (David Boreanaz) continue to keep his TBI secret from Bravo’s newest member Omar (Raffi Barsoumian) without it leading to mission failure on SEAL Team? It’s certainly getting trickier and trickier.
For instance, the latest episode begins with Jason up at night while everyone else is asleep, listening to audio therapy recordings for his brain to help with his cognitive function and memory, then doing some of those brain exercises on his phone. He does fall asleep (and dreams of the young man they turned against the militia who was killed trying to help them), and the next morning, Omar remarks he didn’t sleep well either after what happened. After a snide remark from Omar, Jason snaps. Ray (Neil Brown Jr.) is stuck playing mediator for most of the episode.
But when Jason overhears Omar questioning Ray about his time captive last year and being back in Syria, he intervenes. What if he catches wind about Ray freezing up, Jason asks, arguing that the other man has more to lose than Bravo 1 does, including the vet center he and his wife are just getting up and running. Don’t give him any ammunition, Jason argues, even though Ray thinks he’s being paranoid.
Monty Brinton/Paramount+
Then Jason and Omar are the only ones available to run surveillance on a possible location of the man they think is responsible for the bombing of the U.S.S. Crampton. In the car, Omar comments that Ray must’ve had to rely on the team after what he went through and that despite what Jason might have heard about his time on Foxtrot, he would’ve carried Ray, too, just like he would any teammate. Jason questions him about the issues he heard about between Omar and one of his Foxtrot teammates; they were personal, never tactical, Omar insists. He does say that war, not Jason, is responsible for that young man’s death, which seems like a step in the right direction … until they see their target and Jason refuses to make a move. He’s hit with TBI symptoms (ringing in his skull, vertigo, tinnitus) — so he doesn’t want to put Omar at risk — and he says a civilian spotted and made them.
However, because he refuses to tell Omar what’s going on, not only does the other man think Jason doesn’t trust him, but, as Ray explains after Jason clues him in, the rest of the team thinks that as well. Jason knows if they don’t get another shot at their target, command will ask questions he doesn’t want Omar to answer. Ray does a bit of damage control for Jason when it comes to Omar, telling the rest of the team he’s solid in the field. He also talks to Sonny (AJ Buckley) about Jason not wanting to clue Omar in. But “Jason has been more Jason than usual lately,” Sonny points out. “We force him to try and trust Omar, it’s just going to backfire on us. You know what happens when Bravo 1 gets cornered. This place is bad enough without that.”
Bravo does get another shot at their target, and they team up with the locals Omar brought in, the YPJ. But during the course of the mission, the YPJ’s leader sacrifices herself, their target gets away, and due to politics, Bravo is ordered to return to the States.
Monty Brinton/Paramount+
Meanwhile, back home, Clay (Max Thieriot), who’s not answering Sonny’s calls or Jason’s texts, takes offense when his work is double-checked during a training exercise — only to be reminded that that’s protocol. Then, at home, he’s bothered when Stella (Alona Tal) asks if his leg is bothering him and the nanny they hired grabs their son’s toy before he can. She’s not there to help him, he argues. Stella tries to explain that she’s just trying to take some of the pressure off him between Green Team and his recovery after he lost his leg, but Clay’s mood doesn’t improve when his wife asks about work. When Stella brings up missing Bravo and that he knew it would be different since he’d been planning to take time off for his family, he walks out.
And it just gets worse after that. Later, Clay takes a pill — he’s hiding the bottle in a sock in a drawer — then tells Stella he told the nanny not to come that day. Don’t worry, Brian’s still alive, he says. (Ouch!) He feels like she doesn’t trust him with his own son, and nothing she says changes his mind. “I have overcome every obstacle that I’ve ever faced in my life, and now all of a sudden, people just think I’m incapable of the simplest s**t,” he says. She just wants to help him, but he insists he doesn’t anyone’s help.
That’s when she brings up the fact that Sonny hasn’t heard from him; his “battle boo” left her a message. Clay accuses her of conspiring with Sonny behind his back. And then he packs a bag, even as Stella begs him not to go. “He’s the one who needs you,” Clay says, referring to their crying son, before leaving. Uh-oh. Well, at least Bravo seems to be coming home just as Clay needs them?
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