How close were we to 'the end' in Sept 2008?

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke is presenting a 4-lecture course on the central bank at George Washington University.  This is how MarketWatch’s ‘Political Watch’ summarized one portion of his most recent lecture:

‘Failure of AIG would have been "the end," Bernanke says. They were connected to everyone. "It was interacting with so many different firms, it was so interconnected with both the U.S. and the European financial systems, global banks, we were quite concerned that if AIG went bankrupt that we would not be able to control the crisis any further," he said.  I don't think Bernanke has ever been so specific or used the word "the end" before. Yikes.’