While for the most part, “everything was positive” about finding out S.W.A.T. had been uncanceled for a second time, there was one heartbreaking part, according to executive producer Andrew Dettmann.
During Season 7, Hondo (Shemar Moore) has had to say goodbye to three members of 20 Squad. Street (Alex Russell) transferred to Long Beach, Luca (Kenny Johnson) was forced to retire after an injury when he interrupted a robbery off-duty, and Deacon (Jay Harrington) has chosen to retire. While Harrington is still around as Deacon adjusts to his next chapter, such is not the case for Russell or Johnson, who both had farewell episodes.
“I would love to see them back,” Dettmann tells TV Insider. “The one heartbreaking thing was when we were told this is the end, Season 7, giving Street and Alex that goodbye, making part of Long Beach PD, giving Luca that heartbreaking goodbye that Kenny played so well, those seemed like great story opportunities that the writers were clamoring to do, but now it’s like, oh boy, we wrote them out.”
Looking ahead to Season 8, he already has ideas. “There’s no reason why LAPD couldn’t do a case with the Long Beach PD in which we can bring Street back. I am hoping Alex, who plays Street. also directs for us. I don’t have my director’s list for Season 8 yet because that’s a complicated process, but I would love if Alex came back to direct, and if I can convince him to step in front of the camera too, I’ll do that,” the EP shares. “And the same with Kenny. I adore Kenny. We all parted on really good terms. He was so happy with the episodes that he got and his goodbye. So yeah, I hope so. I’d love to see both of them back again.”
Russell’s last episode ended with Street revealing his plans to propose to Chris (Lina Esco, who exited after five seasons). It’s impossible to imagine them getting married without everyone there.
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“I thought that was a really fun thing to throw on at the end of Street’s [farewell],” says Dettmann, agreeing, “Yeah, it would be hard to imagine—unless, I mean, Chris was a little bit of a wild one, so unless they did something real exotic somewhere far away. But no, I think that would something we’d certainly want the team to celebrate at some point and see. There’s no reason why if we can’t make it work with the right story that we couldn’t have Chris and Street come through. I would love to see that. So it’s just a matter of coming up with the right story and getting actor availabilities and things like that, but that would be really fun to see them. I agree.”
And if that happens, that would be the complete opposite of what happened with Hondo and Nichelle (Rochelle Aytes): His proposal ended last season, and this one started with them already married. “Hondo’s proposal felt like wedding vows, all the things he said to her,” the EP explains. “We felt like, ‘Okay, we don’t need to see them gather and say all that again.’ So we came back and suddenly, yeah, my wife and ring on the finger only because we thought, ‘We don’t want to repeat that moment that we had them in a church, flowers all around saying those things.’”
The only reason that we can even talk about what’s to come in Season 8 is because S.W.A.T. was uncanceled for the second time (after the initial cancellation after the sixth season before the decision was reversed, then a surprise announcement of an eighth days after the series finale date had been set). Everyone is excited to come back, Dettmann says.
“At the end of Season 6, it seemed like we had run our course. We were all disappointed to get canceled, but the upside of that was going from a cancellation, which was heartbreaking—our wrap party for Season 6 was very weird,” he admits. “We didn’t know where we were. We were sort of up in the air. And then shortly after we heard about the cancellation. But the upside of that is then when we got the notion of 13 [episodes], just to say farewell seemed like a blessing, right? Because how often do you get to do that? That was a big uplifting thing. That wasn’t that sad because we planned for the end.
He continues, “But then as the season went on and our numbers and our ratings got better and better, I won’t lie, Shemar and I were exchanging late night texts about, ‘We can do this. We are either going to go out with a really great finale to our Season 7, or it’s going to be clear that we’re still a show. We’re still a thing.’ And so getting a pickup for Season 8 just felt like yet another blessing on top of everything. So other than that first notion of we’re canceled, everything since then has just been very much a positive uphill roll.”
How would you like to see S.W.A.T. bring back Street, Luca, and Chris in the future? Let us know in the comments section, below.
S.W.A.T., Season 7 Finale, Friday, May 17, 8/7c, CBS
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