This contributed to the larger failure to connect the fragments of intelligence that could have revealed the plot, Abdulmutallab's extremist views, AQAP's involvement with a Nigerian, its desire to strike the U.S. homeland.
Questions from TV critics about how long the series, about a bound-to-be-discovered conman, can last have been convincingly parried by the show's producers (see "Lone Star Could Be A Spectacular Failure"), who maintain they're more concerned with having too many plot points than too few.