Animation
Good Times
Netflix takes a classic sitcom, Good Times, and turns it into a vulgar, violent, sexually-charged TV-MA show.
Toughest job in the world? That of a television reviewer, no question. So much TV to watch. Soooo much. And then, if that wasn’t enough, you’ve got to write about all that TV! I could sprain a finger, you know. And I won’t even get into the potential eye strain.
But being a member of the super-elite Navy SEALs would be right up there, too.
Afghanistan? Been there. Syria? Done that. Yemen? Chad? The Congo? If the need is great enough, there’s no place on earth this team won’t go. If the country decided to send them into North Korea, they’d be on the first flight to Pyongyang. Most of us would call them heroes, even though next to nobody even knows their names.
Well, unless you watch SEAL Team on CBS and Paramount+. Then you know all about them. Sorta.
Jason Hayes leads this version of this special ops unit, commanding a team that can crack any terrorist conundrum in about 43 minutes and making the world a little safer each and every week.
Forget the morally compromised antiheroes or the season-long sagas so popular on prestige television today: This is no Homeland. SEAL Team, like the members of the team itself, is distinctly old school. If there’s a bad guy to deal with, these operatives will see to it that he gets what’s coming to him, and they collectively perform with all the skill and grace of a surgeon. Sure, rarely do missions come off without a hitch or two (most of which pop up right before a commercial break), and sometimes team members get hurt or even die. But it’s also a rare episode that lets the villain skedaddle scot-free—a nice change, frankly, from the real world. Even when the missions themselves can get tangled in red tape or murked up by mixed motives, the unit members themselves are all about getting the job done—whatever it takes.
When they’re not home, the team’s wives, girlfriends and other family members can only sit and hope that each new morning won’t be the day they get that dreadful visit from a higher up, telling them that something bad has happened. But when the SEAL team is home, they’ve got plenty of issues to deal with, too—and ones that require a whole different approach.
Yes, every member of the SEAL Team has his own set of challenges, both at home and on the job. So it’s only natural that viewers who’d choose to watch ’em would be confronted with some issues, too.
CBS doesn’t seem interested in pushing broadcast standards with this conspicuously red-state show. It wants to focus on its heroes, not on any ancillary fallout. The show is also on Paramount+, however, and the content is significantly more extreme there. Profanities go unfiltered, for one thing, and some scenes that wouldn’t make the broadcast cut might be aired there.
But even in its CBS incarnation, that doesn’t mean that SEAL Team makes for great family viewing. What we see—both at home and abroad—can get pretty messy. Missions almost always involve some form of violence; blood, death and dismemberment often result. And when things are peaceful out on the streets, the camera tends to move into the boudoir, where action of a different kind can sully the screen. Sex scenes, while not explicit, are not rare, either—and sometimes take the form of premarital or extramarital affairs. Language can be crude and, at times, profane.
It should be noted that the series also delves into the sad realities that service members, veterans and their families face—including high rates of suicide, broken homes and mental health issues.
Admittedly, it’s not as hard to watch SEAL Team as it is to be a member of a SEAL Team—not even close. But that doesn’t mean that watching doesn’t come with a cost of its own.
Pinned down and injured following an ambush involving an improvised explosive device, Bravo team must survive the onslaught while they wait for support. Clay is injured, and when wife Stella learns about it, her community supports her as she waits for more news.
In a recap of previous episodes, a man and woman kiss. A car explodes from an IED, and rocket-propelled grenades are fired at the squad.
Bravo team engages in a gunfight against terrorists. One soldier wakes up with blood dripping from his mouth, and others are injured from bullets or other wounds. Clay finds his leg soaked in blood, and when he inspects it, his leg is mostly detached. As he tries to patch it up as much as he can, we see him press into the visceral wound, vomiting multiple times from pain. He’s given morphine to help with the pain. Vehicles are blown up. After the gunfight, we see the members of the squad covered in scars, wounds and scratches.
One man talks about taking Clay for a bachelor party when he wakes up, which he calls a “Debauch-alypse.” He also references condoms. A man drinks a beer.
In the Paramount+ version of the show that we reviewed, the f-word is used over 20 times, and the s-word is used six times. (Those profanities would likely be censored on the network version of the show.) We also hear “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “h—” and “crap” occasionally. God’s name is used in vain three times, including once in the form of “g-dd–n.” Jesus’ name is used in vain four times.
The team is tasked with catching a Serbian war criminal known as “The Butcher of Travnik.” We learn that he was responsible for the deaths of more than 1,000 Bosnians. In flashback, we see weeping Bosnian civilians (including women and children) lined up against a wall and executed. We hear the guns and the screams, but don’t see the resulting carnage … or at least we don’t until we return to the present and examine a photograph of the massacre (along with another photo showing dead American soldiers). Elsewhere, someone’s painfully elbowed in the face. Shots are fired into a vehicle, though with no obvious casualties.
But while Jason’s confident about that mission, he’s less certain about responding to revelations about a fallen comrade. That late soldier, Nate, may have been having an affair before his death. Jason’s coworker, Ray, tells Jason to let Nate’s memory go unsullied. “Lying’s not necessarily deceit,” he tells Jason, ribbing him that he must’ve found Jesus. (Ray, apparently, has done just that—quoting Scripture with ease. But he also reminds Jason that Nate’s far from the first guy on the team to have an affair. And when Ray sees a picture of Nate’s supposed paramour, he quips that Nate “always had good taste.”) Jason seems to take Ray’s advice and lies to protect Nate’s secret.
We see Jason making out with his estranged wife, Alana: They’re both shirtless (she wears a bra), and they roll around in bed kissing. Later, we see them buttoning up after “fooling around,” as one of them calls it. Alana quips that it’s like they’re both 15 again, secretly making out in her uncle’s car. Elsewhere, Clay, a guy who’s trying to get on the SEAL Team, lounges around in bed with his girlfriend. They’re both apparently naked (though we only see them from the shoulders up), and it’s only their third date. So when the woman tells Clay that she’d like to meet his father, Clay suggests they wait on that step until “we know each other a little better.” “We should know each other a little better before we sleep together again, right?” she counters.
Someone jokes about having a homosexual relationship. Several characters drink beer. Clay’s father seems a little unsteady on his feet one morning, and he tells Clay that some old buddies took him out the previous evening. Someone lights and smokes a cigarette. Characters say “a–,” “b–ch,” “b–tard,” “d–n” and “h—,” and misuse God’s name once.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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