The rumor mill is once again aflutter, this time about the proposed end game for “24,” which is currently in its seventh season. With the question of when it will end seemingly out of the way, fans are now wondering how it will end. Could this mean the end of Jack Bauer?

If Bauer is to be killed off, it must be done in a way that is both poignant to the show and unflinchingly awesome. With all the character has been through, he deserves to have his limbs ripped off in an atomic-scale explosion or, in the very least, an implosion. Similarly, “24” has earned notoriety for killing off its best characters in the weakest fashions. Sure, Season 2 saw George Mason get nuked in possibly the coolest television death ever, but most of the other big names were shot on sight.

I understand how unreal a concept literally throwing Jack to the wolves might be, but when every season revolves around one man taking down an entire legion of high-powered terrorists in a convenient 24-hour window, how much realism or credibility do you honestly have in the first place? Let’s see how crazy (read: amazing) Jack’s death could be if I were running the show.

Scenario 1: In a bitter sense of irony, his neck is snapped by a bad guy’s really strong calf muscles.

Scenario 2: In a bitter sense of irony, he is eaten by a cougar whilst prowling the woods.

Scenario 3: In a bitter sense of irony, he overdoses on heroin.

Scenario 4: Unironically, he is trapped in a crumbling building and eventually crushed under a pile of rubble.

OK, so that last one was from one of the Brady Bunch movies, but it would keep with the implosion aspect. What I’m getting at, though, is Jack’s death needs to fall in line with the rest of show. The writers have always had their thumbs on continuity, which is why Jack gets arrested every season, or the terrorists mention his wife that died at the end of the first “day.”

Before considering his death, there are a few things you need to know about this show. Seasons 1 through 3 are generally considered the show’s glory years, while Season 4 showed a sharp decline in quality. Season 5 was undoubtedly the most talked about of the series and Season 6 was, of course, the “dud.” Season 8, we now know, will likely be the final chapter. So is it really possible that “Day 7” is the day of rest those Biblical folk always talked about?

None of us know how Jack is going to bite the bullet, or if he is even going to, but it sure is fun to dream. What I do know is that all this recent chatter is putting a damper on the current season, which is a genuinely fine piece of work in its own right.