‘SEAL Team’: Sonny Needs to Make Better Choices — What Could That Mean for His Future on Bravo?

AJ Buckley SEAL Team Sonny Quinn Season 4
Spoiler Alert
CBS

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for SEAL Team Season 4 Episode 13 “Do No Harm.”]

Sonny Quinn (AJ Buckley) and responsibility aren’t exactly words you’d automatically think go together — namely because he doesn’t. On SEAL Team, the soldier is just a bit too comfortable being what everyone thinks he is: “a dumbass knuckle-dragger” and “just a shooter.”

But if the May 5 episode showed anything, it’s that something has to change for him. First, he drops the ball as Bravo’s rep at a meeting (after walking in late) and the team loses out on time on the top deck at the shooting range. (Max Thieriot’s Clay Spenser is tasked with taking his place as the team’s rep.) Then, he mouths off to Lt. Wes Soto (Mike Wade). Then, he turns on Jason Hayes (David Boreanaz), wondering when Bravo 1 started caring about him beyond what he does on missions. (Ouch! But he’s not the first to call Jason out on not noticing things about his soldiers away from ops.)

And sure, Sonny had a good excuse for messing up at that meeting: Hannah (Rachel Boston) emailed about complications with her pregnancy. She and the baby are okay, but Sonny’s feeling a bit helpless, unsure how to help or comfort her, so he blanked on his responsibility. At this point, he admits to Clay, he’s wondering, “maybe I should just stop fighting” how everyone sees him.

Then, Sonny is clearly troubled by events that go down during an op: Things go sideways, and an innocent civilian, a father staying by his son’s side at the hospital, is killed. “That man did everything right, gave every breath to that kid, and this is how it all plays out,” he tells Jason. “Just a shooter. I wasn’t able to protect him.”

AJ Buckley David Boreanaz SEAL Team Season 4 Sonny Jason

Monty Brinton/CBS

As Bravo 1 points out, the job reminds them that life isn’t fair. And Sonny feels like what’s not fair is how his daughter is coming into the world. “I just think maybe she’d be better off without me,” he admits. That’s when Jason discovers he’s been drinking, something that could get the entire team bounced from the deployment.

“You gotta make better choices,” Jason orders. “I’m always going to be here for you, you know that, right? But you gotta evolve.”

Will he? If he does, it’s not going to happen so quickly. The promo for the May 12 episode, “Hollow at the Core,” shows that Sonny’s a bit of a mess — and bloody?! “If you want to sabotage your own life? Fine,” Clay tells him. “But you gotta stop bringing everybody else down around you.”

But it sounds like that’s going to change by the Season 4 finale on May 26: “Bravo takes a devastating hit that will change the team forever, and forces each of the members to make some big personal decisions.” Could the path Sonny’s on lead him to wonder if he needs to make a drastic change and leave Bravo behind? Will he try to figure out how to be a team guy and a father?

Whatever happens, we have faith that Sonny’s going to at least try to pull it together.

SEAL Team, Wednesdays, 9/8c, CBS