I don’t necessarily see a problem tying all of those up. I suspect that the Drazens are going to go after Palmer again. Jack is going to stop them. Along the way, the Drazens get killed. Perhaps Palmer’s wife will get killed in the attempt, saving him from a messy divorce (he doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would stay in a marriage of convenience with someone as evil as her). Alternatively, Palmer stays out of the Drazen’s sights, and just tells his wife to hit the road. Maybe she does something dramatic like try to kill him and get hauled away or something, or she just leaves.
What happens to Nina? Depends on exactly who she is, and what she’s up to. If she’s Drazen’s daughter, then I expect that in the end she’ll wind up dead. If she’s just a spy, she may just get hauled off to jail.
Now here’s an interesting angle… The writers went out of their way to show that the younger Drazen honestly believes that his sister is dead. Was it him that talked to Nina at the end, or was it Victor? If it was Victor, then I think it’s possible that he is double-crossing his own son, or at least keeping the truth from him. In which case we could see the Drazens kill <i>each other</i>, or at least one kills the other. That is, if Nina is actually Victor Drazen’s daughter, which I think she is.
Palmer’s mysterious supporters? I didn’t think they were that mysterious. Just typical big money men supporting a politician and getting carried away. Didn’t his press conference announcing the conspiracy take care of them? Or does something still have to play out there?
I think the first assassin is gone. There was also the female assassin who blew up the plane, who is also gone. The world’s full of people like that. I don’t think we need to ever see them again to get closure.
Teri? What do we have to do with her? I think that story arc is already closed, isn’t it? One of the pieces of dramatic tension throughout the series was Teri’s strained relationship with Jack. But in the last episode, they re-affirmed their love, Jack knows she’s pregnant, and all they have to do now is hug at the end when it’s all over.
The next episode will certainly be busy, but if it’s well written I think they can wrap it all up satisfactorily.
And of course, it’s just possible that Drazen will get away and Nina will go undiscovered, leaving us with plenty of dramatic tension with which to start the next season. After all, the cliffhanger is a tradition in TV land. If we waited all summer to find out who shot JR and who shot Mr. Burns, I guess we can wait to find out what happens to the characters if the writers try to go that way.
The key story arc that has to close is the immediate threat to the Bauers. If they are re-united and there’s no one around to kill them, that’s probably enough to satisfy. Even if a few of the baddies escape.
And it may yet turn out that Nina is a double-agent, still loyal to Jack and trying to set Drazen up. But I doubt it.
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