During an upcoming episode of "SEAL Team," David Boreanaz's Bravo Team leader Jason Hayes has a rare moment of relaxing reflection on a beach while sucking down a bottle of the show's famed (and fictional) Liberty Anthem beer.

"Beer always tastes better after a mission's success," Hayes muses wryly.

For Boreanaz, who has played the leader of the most elite unit of Navy SEALs since 2017, the line has greater resonance, knowing that Season 7 of the Paramount+ series (the first two episodes stream Sunday) will mark the end of "SEAL Team." It's time to declare "mission accomplished" for the military show, which is still a blow for the cast, crew, and semper-fi fan base.

"I've always looked at the 'SEAL Team' dialogue as a metaphor, and this is the right time to be ending the series," Boreanaz, 55, tells USA TODAY. "But that beer ... it tasted bittersweet."

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Why is 'SEAL Team' ending in Season 7?

Sure, it's hard to let go of the gritty, long-running series. Boreanaz and Hayes have survived every type of gnarly firefight since 2017, when "SEAL Team" was a primetime CBS show. They kept rolling as the series moved from the network to Paramount+ before Season 5 and endured the Season 6 TV death of core member Clay Spenser (when actor Max Thieriot left the show to create "Fire Country").

"SEAL Team" has continued with its loyal, if not overwhelming, audience and a lean budget.

"You watch some of these seasons. and you're like, 'How the hell did we do that with that budget we had?' " says Boreanaz. "I'd put 'SEAL Team' up against any big action film."

Still, Boreanaz says he has supported, even endorsed, the idea of ending the show after this Hollywood strike-delayed season, at least partly because of the physical grind for a 50-plus actor portraying an active Navy SEAL every week.

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"My body was hurting and sore; I had four MRIs in four months," says Boreanaz. Hayes' Season 4 promotion to get him out of the weekly battles didn't last long. "Hayes just isn't the guy who stays behind the scenes and watches his men go out without him."

A hand-to-hand battle between Hayes and an armed terrorist early in Season 7 shows Boreanaz can still bring the beast. But there's a cost.

"We wanted it to be brutal," he says. "Your hips and your shoulders hurt. You put the ankle brace on and it's just part of the game."

Does Jason Hayes die in 'SEAL Team' Season 7?

Bravo Team is Initially sidelined in Season 7 by Navy brass for ruffling feathers while seeking support on real-world issues such as traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. But Hayes and his "SEAL Team" crew − including Ray Perry (Neil Brown Jr.) and Sonny Quinn (A.J. Buckley) − will get unleashed on a final mission involving a return to Afghanistan. This trip will be so dangerous that Boreanaz repeatedly teases the prospect of ending the show with Hayes' death.

FYI, this probably won't happen, but it was discussed.

"What excited me about ending the show was ending the character altogether," says Boreanaz. "Because that's what happens every time you come off a Blackhawk helicopter on a mission."

If history is a guide, Boreanaz has not gone for the finale stake in the heart on any of his past characters or TV shows, including "Angel," the supernatural WB spinoff of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." The open-ended 2004 finale featured Angel and his vampire pals about to fight an overwhelming army of supernatural freaks, with an unbowed Angel growling, "Let's go to work."

"Does (Angel) make it, does he not make it? It teases the audience," says Boreanaz. "There's a thirst for more."

The actor's Fox police procedural "Bones" ended in 2017 after 12 years and 246 episodes. Boreanaz's FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth and Emily Deschanel's forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan were still in a good place after thwarting a hair-raising final bomb plot. The two "Bones" stars are great friends, even if Boreanaz has not appeared on Deschanel's episode-dissecting podcast "Boneheads." (He officially cites "SEAL Team" scheduling for the oversight.)

An overdue podcast appearance could be in the future, but Boreanaz says there are no "serious discussions" about resurrecting any past characters or shows or appearing on any new "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" reboot. He's cultivating his next move.

"I'm now seeing the fruits of labors planted during 'SEAL Team' starting to mature, whether a new series or movie or stage play," says Boreanaz. "For me, it's really putting one series to bed and starting another project."

How will 'SEAL Team' end for David Boreanaz?

There are many story threads to tie up, but the "SEAL Team" finale, titled "The Last Word," will stream on Oct. 6. Boreanaz says the setting will be Honduras, with the month-long shoot taking place in Colombia.

Rather than Liberty Anthem beer, each cast and crew member received multiple bottles of the finest bubbly from Boreanaz to toast the final scene. Ending "SEAL Team" might be bittersweet, but actually completing the show's ultimate scene was a champagne-soaked Colombian beach party under the setting sun.

"To be able to pop corks and spray champagne like I just won the World Series made it one of the most satisfying endings of all for me," says Boreanaz. "I have hilarious video of us all spraying each other. It was a great relief knowing we accomplished what we set out to accomplish."

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