‘S.W.A.T.’: Kenny Johnson on his emotional breakup and the moment that drove his mother crazy

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for S.W.A.T. Season 7 Episode 7 “The Last Call.”]

Good news: Luca (Kenny Johnson) survived despite being hit by a bullet in the chest. Bad news: His days with S.W.A.T. finished.

In the final episode of S.W.A.T. of Johnson, Luca learned that due to permanent nerve damage, his hand and arm would never move the same way again. S.W.A.T. has been his whole life, and a supervisory role is not for him. And so he retires, with a heartfelt conversation with Hondo (Shemar Moore) on the beach, followed by the hour ending.

Below, Johnson opens up about Luca’s ending and filming his character’s emotional final scenes.

Luca must face the fact that he cannot return to S.W.A.T.

Kenny Johnson: That’s a hard pill to swallow. I can’t do a desk job. Luca had difficulty emotionally surrounding the fact that he couldn’t go out and do the best he could at what he did. He was born into S.W.A.T. That’s all he’s ever known. I could tell that his whole heart and conscience were to give, to save, and to protect. And he wants to be out there actively doing it; I think whether he sacrificed his life for it or not, it was something he did selflessly.

I can’t do this so I’ll do something else. And then Hondo tried to say, “No, you can go out there and meet someone new. You can surf the biggest waves.” And I was thinking, “Oh, yeah, okay, that would parallel S.W.A.T. At this point in my life? I’m laughing now, but to Luca, it wasn’t funny at all. All I know is that it’s being taken away from me and I have to accept it.

When a show has to end or your character has to leave—when I did The Shield, at the end of Season 5 and they killed me off, and that was the beginning of the end of the show, and they needed to do that in order to shed light on Shawn [Ryan] ending The Shield. It broke my heart because they were my best friends, and we always thought we would make it to the end together, and it was so shattering. But I think, it’s all for a reason, for the greater good of the program. At least for The Shield, that’s what needed to happen for Shawn to end the series after seven seasons. But it’s really difficult.

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for S.W.A.T. Season 7 Episode 7 “The Last Call.”] Good news: Luca (Kenny Johnson) survived despite being hit by a bullet in the chest. Bad news: His days with S.W.A.T. finished. In the final episode of S.W.A.T. of Johnson, Luca learned that due to permanent nerve damage, his hand…