Never leave a brother behind.
Six (stylized as SIX) is a 2017 TV military drama series produced by the History channel. Eight episodes are scheduled to air, with the first episode on January 18, 2017. It stars Barry Sloane, Kyle Schmid, Juan Pablo Raba and Walton Goggins. The production crew mentions that the show is based on actual missions SEAL Team Six has participated in. Academy Award nominee and military special operations veteran David Broyles have created the series.
The show portrays the lives of commandos who are in the US Navy's United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group or DEVGRU, popularly known as SEAL Team Six as they try to work out their professional and private lives while they're deployed in missions overseas.
The second season began airing on 2018 Memorial Day. History announced that the show will end after the 2nd season airs the last episode.
The series provides examples of:
- African Terrorists: Boko Haram raids a girl's school while Rip is providing security for the students and staff.
- Bluff the Impostor: The SEALs are infiltrating a terrorist base by pretending to be members of an allied organization bringing in supplies. A guard gets suspicious and asks them if they know Abdul. Amir sees the trap and asks which Abdul the guard is referring to. The guard is satisfied and lets them through.
- Bottomless Magazines: Averted until the very end of the series where a blatant error creeps through. When Chloe invades the Ortiz household, we hear six gunshots fire. The revolver she is using is a Smith & Wesson 642 snubnose .38 Special that only holds five rounds, and there is no indication she is anywhere near trained enough to do a reload in the heat of the moment.
- Bullying a Dragon: When the team is trying and failing to comfort Buckley's widow, who's very upset, an armed civilian who doesn't fully understand the situation decides to step in to try and scare the SEALs away. The team then very matter-of-factly points out that he just threatened a group of stone-cold killers. The guy is savvy enough to immediately back down.
- Curbstomp Battle:
- Muttaqi's men massacre a Boko Haram camp without taking any casualties themselves.
- In the season one finale, Seal Team Six absolutely mops the floor with Muttaqi's men, killing all of them without suffering any losses themselves (only a few injuries).
- Downplayed in the second season. The team doesn't lose anyone, but the battles are much harder fought and they take a lot more injuries. In the final fight in Azerbaijan, Armin gets shot in the back and is put out of commission for much of the fight. Trevor spends most of the final episode keeping him alive, and although he makes it home in one piece, it is likely he will be paralyzed. Last, but not least, Caulder is implied to have died from a brain aneurysm after suffering two brain concussions in the course of Season 2.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The capture of a girl's school in Nigeria would remind viewers of what Boko Haram did when they captured Nigerian schoolgirls.
- Do Not Do This Cool Thing: An in-universe example where the team are shown as having horrible home lives (Truth in Television by the way; special operations soldiers have depressingly high divorce rates due to being away from home so much) but enjoying the camaraderie which comes from teaming up with each other in hostile life-or-death situations.
- Downer Ending: Unfortunately so since the series was Cut Short. Gina dies in Azerbaijan when Tamurlin triggers a grenade to suicide bomb himself, meaning Michael Nasry has no handler now. Caulder's daughter leaves him due to him choosing the SEALs over her, and his brain damage is getting worse. Chase has embraced his dark side and is getting a skull tattoo to celebrate his kills in complete defiance of what Trevor told him the tattoos are supposed to mean. Michael's last call to Chloe expands her target list and she goes to the Ortizes' home, this time to murder all of them, not just Ricky. Lena also happens to be visiting at the time, and she answers the doorbell only to get shot and killed by Chloe. Ricky comes home with Anabel and finds Lena laying dead, and finds that Jacky managed to wrestle the gun away from Chloe and kill her with it. The series ends with Michael being revealed to still be alive and calling on his sleepers to kill more members of the team, as Bear leaves a message on Lena's phone telling her he's ready to give their marriage another try and that he loves her.
- Due to the Dead: "Ghosts" have the SEALs and their families honor Rip by telling stories about their time with him.
- Elite Mooks: Muttaqi's men are trained by former Russian Spestnaz soldiers from Chechnya and are provided with high quality weapons/gear. They are not as good as the SEALs, but are still a serious threat.
- Expy: Michael and Muttaqi are implied to work for ISIS but it's never stated, perhaps because it might give the organization good publicity.
- The Farmer and the Viper: Cooperating with Boko Haram doesn't get you any benefit as they look down on such things as weakness. Irony ensues when the Boko Haram group is slaughtered by Michael's team for their hostages.
- Follow the Leader: An in-universe version. Michael's original vision for the Ummah Movement was to utilize small teams of highly trained operators to carry out surgical strikes and assassinations in a blatant copy of how American special forces work, to distinguish them from other jihadist groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS who simply throw bodies at the enemy.
- Hope Spot: In the second season premiere, Rip appears to have been stabilized in the hospital and the team is optimistic he will pull through. During the mission briefing to go after Rip's shooter, Buddha gets a text on his phone that Rip has died in hospital.
- Live-Action Escort Mission: With his training, Rip is able to escape from the Boko Haram and then helps the other hostages escape. On his own, he probably could have evaded pursuit and made it to safety. However, a group of children and injured adults is too slow and too visible to evade pursuit for long.
- Middle Eastern Terrorists: SEAL Team Six is deployed to respond to an attack perpetrated by ISIS in "Pilot".
- The show in a whole has the SEALs take on the Ummah Movement.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The team gets away with almost everything they could possibly want to do in terms of operational freedom but Rip is kicked out when he executes an unarmed American (despite said American being a member of the Taliban).
- Starter Villain: Boko Haram serves as this before Michael's group takes over.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: When Rip executes Omar, Alex is deeply angered by it. Alex claims that he did not become a SEAL to kill unarmed prisoners. This disagreement puts a permanent strain on their relationship.
- War Is Hell: Subverted. The conditions are certainly nightmarish but the SEAL team is at home in it.
- Wham Episode:
- In "Pilot", the media has outed "RIP"'s former STS affiliation, which is forcing the SEALs to rescue him before he's executed.
- In "Man Down", Buckley is wounded after the Nigerian mission goes bust due to RIP being relocated.
- In "Confession", Muttaqi discards Michael after he learns that he killed the BH leader in Nigeria.
- In "End Game", Rip is shot and killed by the girl that Michael had been communicating with online after he's shot twice, and his death is broadcast live via the internet. And the episode suggests that Michael is helping her by giving details on the SEALs who were present in Chad.
- The Workaholic: This is pretty much a job requirement for a member of SEAL Team Six. They train all the time, never know when they might be called in for a mission, are absent from home for long periods of time and don't even make that much money.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Heavy emphasis on loosely as the Nigerian Schoolgirl Kidnapping is an ongoing tragedy in real life.
- Worthy Opponent: A particularly dark example. Boko Haram rapes and abuses any of their captives that cooperate with them. However, when they discover Rip is a Navy SEAL, he gets in their face and challenges them. This results in him being treated relatively humanely both because of his value as a hostage and the fact he's a fellow warrior. Rip does not return the feeling in the slightest.
