SEAL Team season 6 saw production break ranks in a shift from network TV to streaming service Paramount+, causing fans to wonder if they should dig in or pop smoke. The sitrep at the end of season 5 puts fans waiting for SEAL Team season 6 firmly on their fourth point of contact. Clay Spenser, portrayed by long-serving actor Max Thieriot, disclosed thoughts of separation in the season finale, citing his duties on the domestic front.
Though family calls, fate may have other plans. Spenser and the men who serve with him fall victim to an ambush with an uncertain outcome, leaving Clay (and for a while, SEAL Team season 6) as a possible expectant. Fans remain in a state of profound VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
Where—or whether—the operators will return for a sixth sortie remains to be seen, but those waiting for SEAL Team season 6 might find the following books, motion picture offerings, and podcasts just the thing to keep them occupied while they wait to hat up.
Ship’s Log (Read)
Not to be confused with the movie further down in this list that shares the same title and nothing else. This is the 14th novel in the battle-hardened and action-ready Pike Logan saga. As the story opens, Logan, head of the elite counterterrorism unit known as Taskforce, finds himself in the crosshairs of a
mysterious menace. Pike, his Taskforce and romantic partner Jennifer Cahill, and the pair’s adopted ward, thirteen-year-old Amena, are targeted by assailants who strike seemingly out of nowhere and disappear just as mysteriously. When his long-time adviser Kurt Hale moves in only to fall victim to a deadly car bomb meant for Pike, the younger man goes kinetic in a relentless and fury-fueled rogue action, determined to avenge his mentor’s death and keep his loved ones safe from harm. Read here.
The seventh book featuring Dewey Andreas opens with menacing understatement. The Speaker of the House is found dead, robbed of life by a drowning that was anything but accidental. Shadowy figures near power within the Military-Industrial Complex have decided to seize control of the US
government, and the waterlogged Speaker was only the initial tango. Andreas, on the mend from the fallout of a previous mission, is sent to Paris to protect the Secretary of State en route to secret strategy meetings in Paris. When an agent of the rogue elite assassinates the now third-in-line Secretary, Dewey is framed as the shooter. On the run, without cover or control, Andreas must somehow protect the lives of the President, Vice President, and millions of Americans under the threat of the cabal’s ultimate objective: a false-flag massacre on a scale never before realized. Read here.
When the body of a high-value target is found washed up on an Italian beach after a freak Mediterranean storm, the intelligence community erupts in frenzied conjecture. The corpse is identified as a key suspect in acts of international terrorism who had disappeared years earlier. His sudden reappearance—even
dead—correlates with troubling SIGINT indicating an imminent attack unprecedented in scope and scale. Tight on time and needing actionable intel, the CIA sends former SEAL operator Scot Harvath on a black-budget plausibly deniable mission with ultimate stakes—and the world can’t afford him to fail. Read here.
Thorlin, the Atlanta-born writer behind the perspective-shifting Sins, has a classic thriller-author pedigree. A mechanical engineer with a law degree from no less than Harvard, the soft-spoken southerner (without the slightest trace of the Georgia accent readers may assume—but which hasn’t been heard in a
generation) moved to Northern Virginia and currently lives inside the beltway.
By day, he works as a congressional staffer, and by night he writes thoughtful and many-layered thrillers like 2020’s Sins of the Flag Bearer. The self-declared “geopolitics enthusiast” proudly cites Clancy as an influence, and he brings a similar depth of perception to this novel. Its protagonist is an intelligent, patriotic, irreverent Russian who plans to manipulate the US president into treaty-breaking negligence, allowing his beloved Russia to annex Estonia without sparking a war. Why? Because it’s the right, patriotic thing to do—and it would make his бабушка (that’s babushka, for the non-Cyrillicly inclined) proud.. Read here.
Best known for authoring the hit Netflix mystery-thriller The Stranger, this book appeared the year after the novel that would become the miniseries. It’s worth revisiting even if you caught it when it first went to press, as it has certain elements uncommon in the genre, like the woman protagonist at the center of
this story’s dark, mysterious heart. Newly stateside after a tour of duty as an army special ops pilot, Maya tries to adjust to life without the stresses of active duty. She may have left combat, but bloodshed still haunts her, as she loses her husband to a senseless act of violence that she was powerless to stop. In the weeks after the slaying, Maya sees her dearly departed husband playing with their infant daughter in the blurry, ghostly output of a nanny cam, casting everything she thought she knew into darkness. What happened to her husban —who she saw die with her own eyes? Moving through secrets and lies in an attempt to uncover—and know—the truth, Maya finds insight and perspective that brings everything but comfort. Read here.
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Fire Watch
In the unforgiving waters beneath the polar ice cap, an American nuclear submarine shadows its Russian counterpart, a newly launched attack sub about which little is known. The pair play a tense and perilous hide-and-go-seek that men who served both nations have been engaging in since the first Soviet
podvodnaya lodka put screws to Baltic brine. Then: treachery. As DC and Moscow rattle sabers in a prelude to what could become WWIII, COMSUBLANT issues orders for the neophyte and unorthodox Commander Joe Glass, convincingly portrayed with great energy and thoughtful nuance by Gerard Butler, to proceed at flank speed to the last known location of both subs.
The movie, penned by former O-5 skip George Wallace and submarine warfare historian Don Keith, unfolds with tight, measured pacing and a fine eye to detail fans will appreciate. Available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV, Hunter Killer is based on the book Final Bearing, written by the same authors. It stars Butler, Gary Oldman, and Michael Nyqvist in one of the veteran actor’s last performances. Watch here.
Set in the Afghan theater of 2005, a four-man SEAL team deploys with one objective—eliminating high-value target Ahmad Shah, leader of the Taliban. Mark Walhberg puts in a solid performance as Marcus Luttrell, and the mission (like everything in the perpetually wartorn nation) quickly gets more complex,
dangerous, and intense than anyone could have predicted. Watch here.
Another unlikely protagonist is the center of the action here, this time with Saoirse Ronan playing the title role. Raised by her father (played with masterful restraint by Eric Bana) in the wild Finnish countryside, Hanna has all the skills needed to be an assassin at an age when most young women are just learning
to drive. Her father’s training wasn’t incidental. As Hanna embarks on the mission she has trained her whole life to carry out, another feminine energy appears in the merciless Marissa, portrayed in riveting style by Cate Blanchett. Marissa is as ruthless and unflinching as the prodigal daughter—but older, wiser, and with information that could shatter the teen’s understanding of life and her place in it. Watch here.
This may have been a much bigger deal than it is, had COVID-19 not shuttered the theaters it was supposed to have premiered in. It’s a solid sleeper hit on Amazon, where it keeps company with other Clancy assets like John Krasinski’s Jack Ryan. Clancy’s John Clark, played in an energetic and fierce approach by
Michael B. Jordan, is perhaps a bit less cerebral than Ryan—but maybe only because he’s angry and out for revenge. Lucy Russell and Guy Pearce are great veteran additions to the ensemble, but it should be noted that the movie shares little with the book of the same name. Watch here.
This one’s a bit different. The French production features a brutally violent opener that sets the stage for an unexpected rebirth. Nikita, played by the multi-faceted and unflinching Anne Parillaud, kills a French cop in a pharmacy robbery gone wrong. Sentenced to death, she finds herself reborn as an assassin trained
in every aspect of the craft. Her service in her new role redeems her, in a sense, and with her freedom comes choice—and consequence—that she could never have imagined. Watch here.
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The Bosun’s Call (Listen)
1. Cleared Hot
Andy Stumpf became the first E-6 selection commissioned through the Limited Duty Officer Program in Naval history—after an already storied career full of challenge, achievement, and sacrifice. Carrying out mission count in the triple-digits in his 17-year stint, Andy has the stories—and the scars—to show for it.
Riveting but surprisingly personal, this podcast is a must for thriller fans interested in the realities of the operator experience
The hosts—a former SEAL sniper and Ranger/Green Beret—look at the world around the operator. Brandon Webb (the SEAL) and Jack Murphy (the Ranger) take a frank and piercing look at statecraft, spycraft, diplomacy, and the military tactics necessary when all else fails. Listen here.
3. What a Hell of a Way to Die
This is a little different than most military podcasts. While most career military are more conservative-leaning, Nate and Francis, who host WaHoaWtD, are pretty damn left of center. It’s interesting to hear a different perspective on military culture, defense developments, and issues affecting military veterans
and their families.
4. The Scuttlebutt: Understanding Military Culture
A lot more goes into military life than guns, guts, and glory—most armed forces members don’t touch a weapon after basic unless they need to maintain qualification in its use. This podcast showcases some of what typical enlisted men and the officers who lead them go through daily. Even for civilian listeners, it
can provide context and understanding of all that goes into military life.
5. Bombshell
This bi-weekly podcast comes directly from Washington DC and presents insider expert conversation about foreign policy ins, outs, and oh shits. Never dull, the show features surprising takes on issues and situations most of us never learn.
What's Next for SEAL Team?
Recent reports indicate SEAL Team season 6 will be happening on Paramount+ and that Max Thieriot will likely return. The show proved to be the most popular of Paramount+’s original content offerings. The men of SEAL Team will be back to execute more missions—and find out who the hell was behind that cliff-hanger ambush.
