S.W.A.T. Season 7 Finale Plot Details Spell Trouble For Shemar Moore's Hondo
Contains spoilers for "S.W.A.T." Season 7 Episode 13 — "Twenty Squad"
Fans can expect an emotional conclusion to the 7th season of "S.W.A.T." — and a thrilling one, if a blurb released by CBS ahead of the finale is any indication. Everyone knows that Hondo (Shemar Moore) has been going through the wringer throughout this batch of episodes. He's down three important team members, and the difficulty of running 20-Squad has begun to take its toll on him. It looks like the danger won't be over by the time Season 7 draws to its close.
According to the blurb CBS released, "SWAT faces their deadliest adversary yet when a violent cell of extremists looks to extract vengeance by blowing up half of Los Angeles, potentially killing thousands. Still reeling from the anger and outrage directed at him by his own community, Hondo questions if he still has what it takes to lead 20-Squad."
That means there's a lot of danger ahead for Hondo and the team, and it looks like he might be forced to do battle with the very citizens he's been sworn to protect. It's possible that one of the 20-Squad might not come out of the conflict alive. But don't expect much of anything to be changed for the last episode of Season 7 in preparation for Season 8.
Shemar Moore says the Season 7 finale's staying as it is
Further details are scant for the not-quite-series finale of "S.W.A.T." Kenny Johnson, who played Luca on the show until the character left 20-Squad for an injury-induced retirement during Season 7, revealed to TVLine that the show's Season 8 renewal makes the Season 7 finale even better ... because it's very open-ended and doesn't provide a conclusive ending for 20-Squad or anyone else in the show.
Shemar Moore, meanwhile, has declared that very little of the Season 7 finale has been changed to accommodate the upcoming production of Season 8. He told TV Insider that the finale does not need to be rewritten to accommodate the start of the next season. "This is how determined and in sync the crew, but especially the writers [are]," he said. "What's crazy is we've had to change nothing—absolutely nothing. [...] When you get up to the finale, you'll see when you watch it, you'll go, oh, this was their way of saying goodbye. But it was also our way of saying we could still keep going. We said, this will either be our goodbye or this will be our new beginning."
Viewers will have to watch the "S.W.A.T." Season 7 finale online or via CBS on May 17 to find out who lives, who dies, what changes — and how much hot water Hondo ends up in.