First, the good news: Elliot is indeed alive, and yes, he was really shot and Tyrell is real. As many of you probably made the connection, this scene was a callback to earlier in the season when Mr. Robot shot Elliot:

"...it was imperative that this was the defining real — and I kind of want to underline that (laughs) — moment for Elliot, because he's actually been shot twice in the show now. He was shot in episode four of the first season in that fever dream hallucination, and was obviously continually shot in the beginning of this season. This one, we wanted to make it feel very different."

Of course then we were met with the equally WTF scene with Angela being calm in the face of learning her best friend has been shot, and that she's been in contact with Tyrell this whole time. Esmail says this is the true cliffhanger for next season and we don't need to worry about what Elliot's fate is:

"Angela, to me, is one of the more fascinating characters. What's great about her character is that there's an elasticity to her motivations. You think she's going one way, and then you realize she's actually going another. Portia pulls it off brilliantly. Just in terms of life, I cannot read Portia Doubleday. That's how good she is. I just thought it's such an interesting way to play the character. You can't quite read what side she's on, and it always keeps me on my toes in an interesting way. This just doubles it down for us. Now she's part of this group we never would have expected. She's shifted once again. But is this an alliance with Elliot, or is it against Elliot, one of her oldest childhood friends? That's something we're going to play with in an interesting way next season."

This is just some speculation here, but I think Angela will be found as the true ringleader in this operation. She is the only person involved who really knows there is a difference between Elliot and Mr. Robot, and even told Elliot on the train, "You think you can trust him, but you can't." Was this manipulation of Elliot and is she having side conversations with Mr. Robot? We can only assume so after that scene.

Esmail went on to confirm that there will be a lot more Tyrell in season 3, and explained the dynamic between the two quite well:

"The interesting thing to me about Elliot and Tyrell's relationship is that you can clear-cut have a good guy versus a bad guy. That's the way we sort of set it up at the beginning of the whole show. What's incredibly fascinating to me is, what if these two people actually have a connection? What if literally the guy we're supposed to hate actually loves our hero? And there isn't this sort of conventional antagonistic relationship that they have — that it's out of love, as opposed to hate, that there's this friction, that there's this battle? I always thought that was interesting, that usually the hero and the villain of any story are deeply flawed characters. Well, what if these two have the same flaws and are two sides of the same coin, and they both see that and feel that and connect on that? I think there's something a lot more complicated there. We can go into a lot of deeper levels into what that relationship and that conflict will look like going forward."

Something he didn't explain was his prison buddy (played by Joey Bada$$) going to visit the rest of the F Society founders. Did Mr. Robot plan a hit on them? I need to know what happened! I know some people were turned off by the way the season went, but I for one was definitely entertained and hooked for season 3 regardless. Do you feel the same or are you unsatisfied?