So there are lots of hints that the Russian/mafia connection is going to be a big part of the Mueller investigation plot line in season 3. Here’s what we already know from seasons 1 and 2:

The Kremlin was involved in an effort from 2015 through 2017 to both deepen political rifts and potentially sway the election by spreading ‘Fake News’ stories on Facebook. Somewhere around 120 to 150 million American saw these stories. (Note: the writers have made the confusing choice to have the networks call these Russian, fabricated stories “fake news”, and also to have Trump call news networks like CNN “fake news”. We get what they were going for here — there’s a post-modern ‘how do you know what to believe in a world full of bullshit?’ theme running throughout the show— but this particular choice is confusing for the casual viewer.)

An interesting tidbit related to this plot point — caught only by a few diehard fans — is that Russian social media accounts began supporting Trump just days after he announced his candidacy.

The Russians were also involved in the hacking and release of the Democratic National Committee’s emails (via a hacker called Guccifer 2.0), as well as John Podesta’s emails (via Wikileaks)— at least, that’s what the intelligence community keeps saying, though some other characters, notably Trump, have waffled on this point.

On election day, Russian hackers launched cyber attacks on voting systems in at least 21 states. Intelligence officials claim that these cyber attacks made no difference to the outcome of the election, though some viewers doubt that they are in a position to know, since the election records are safeguarded by states, and there has not been any serious investigation into the election-day cyber attacks. Though there’s no strong evidence for the theory, some viewers speculate that these Russian attacks swung the election for Trump.

When Trump’s victory on election day was announced, the Russian parliament erupted into applause, celebrating the victory.

One of the big questions in the show right now is to what extent the Trump campaign was aware of or complicit in any of these activities. There’s already good reason to think that they were aware of and complicit in at least some of these activities, but fans are hoping to learn more in season 3.

Season 2 ended with a big cliffhanger as Mueller arrested Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign director, for laundering the money he earned working for pro-Russian political candidates in the Ukraine, and it was revealed that one of Trump’s campaign advisors, George Papadapolous, was cooperating with the investigation after confessing to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians during the campaign.

From the Mueller investigation scenes, we learned that, in March of 2016, before the big Don Jr. ‘Trump tower meeting’ scene, Papadopoulos met with Joseph Mifsud, director of the London Academy of Diplomacy who — upon learning that Papadopoulos works for the Trump campaign — offered to provide Papadopoulos with Russian connections, and later introduced him to Olga Polonskaya, a Russian national with connections to Putin who suggested that Trump come to Russia to meet with Putin. Papadopoulos suggested this to Trump campaign officials and brought up the possibility during a meeting with Trump in March, 2016.

We also learned from the Mueller investigation scenes at the end of season 2 that, in April, 2016, Papadopoulos met again with Mifsud. The professor had just returned from Russia, and informed Papadopoulos that the Russians “had dirt” on Hilary Clinton — referring to hacked emails. After Trump secured the Republican nomination, Ivan Timofeev — a Russian national with connections to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) — emailed Papadopoulos and said “I have just talked to my colleagues from the MFA…The[y] are open for cooperation. One of the options is to make a meeting for you and the North America desk, if you are in Moscow.”

Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak

Looking back at the season 1 montage, it is now clear that, over the next several months — from April, 2016 to November, 2016 — Trump campaign officials exchanged at least 18 emails and phone calls with Russians, including six phone calls between Trump campaign officials and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Jeff Sessions met with Kislyak several times. And Carter Page, national security advisor to the Trump campaign, met with Kislyak during the Republican National Convention. Jared Kushner had at least 3 meetings with Kislyak during this period, and Flynn and Kushner sought to open a ‘back channel’ to communicate with the Russian government.

The Papadopoulos storyline provides some more context for the now-infamous ‘Trump tower meeting’ scene. Recall, in June, 2016, Don, Jr. received an email offering incriminating information on Clinton from the Kremlin, as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump”. Don, Jr. replied “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.” They soon scheduled a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya.

Natalia Veselnitskaya, “the Russian lawyer” from the Trump Tower meeting scene, played by

The audio dropped out during the scene, so it’s not entirely clear what was discussed at the meeting (in subsequent scenes, Don, Jr. offered an account of what was said, but he revised it so many times that most fans have come to regard him as an unreliable character). We at least know that, in addition to Don, Jr., Paul Manafort (Trump’s campaign director) and Jared Kushner (Trump’s son in law) were present at the meeting.

As we learned from the Mueller scenes in the final episode last season, in June, 2016, Papadopoulos suggested that, if Trump wouldn’t go himself, perhaps somebody else should travel to Russia to meet with the Russian Ministry of foreign affairs contacts. If you pause it at the right time, you can make out his email, which reads “The Russian ministry of foreign affairs messaged and said that if Mr. Trump is unable to make it to Russia, if a campaign rep (me or someone else) can make it for meetings? I am willing to make the trip off the record if it’s in the interest of Mr. Trump and the campaign to meet specific people.” In the next few days, Papadopoulos was at a dinner with Jeff Sessions and Carter Page. At that meeting, Page told Sessions that he would be traveling to Moscow.

Carter Page

Some fans believe that, while in Russia, Page acted as the “campaign rep” at the meetings Papadopoulos referenced in his emails. While in Russia, Page sent emails back to two Trump advisors in which he says “I’ll send you guys a readout soon regarding some incredible insights and outreach I’ve received from a few Russian legislators and senior members of the Presidential administration here.” After the revelation in season 2 that the FBI received a surveillance warrant for Carter Page, we expect to see more of Page next season.

Back in season 1, we learned that, before the Republican National Convention, the Trump team worked to change the Republican platform position with respect to the Ukraine, withdrawing support for the anti-Russian resistance there. At the time, many viewers had trouble making sense of this scene, especially since this was one of the only changes to the platform that the Trump team advocated, and Trump campaign director Paul Manafort turned around and lied about whether the Trump team had been responsible for the change. After two seasons, we still don’t have all the answers about this odd scene. Hopefully viewers will get some resolution in season 3.

At the start of season 2, we saw cybersecurity expert Matt Tait contacted by Peter Smith, an investment banker, GOP operative, and friend of Michael Flynn. Smith told Tait that he had been contacted by a hacker who claimed to have acquired emails from Clinton’s private email server. Smith believed that he could get access to these emails via the ‘Dark Web’, and wanted Tait to corroborate that the emails were genuine after they were acquired. It doesn’t appear that anything came of Smith’s efforts, but the scenes with Tait revealed that Smith was coordinating with the following Trump campaign officials: Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Sam Clovis, Michael Flynn, and Lisa Nelson.

Just before Wikileaks released the Podesta emails, it sent direct messages to Don, Jr. via Twitter. (Later, Wikileaks suggests to Don, Jr. that his father shouldn’t concede the election if he loses.)

Michael Flynn

Last season we learned more about Michael Flynn — that’s the retired general who advised Trump during the campaign, and gave the famous “Lock her up!…If I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today” speech during the Republican National Convention episode in season 1. Recall that, when Flynn applied for a new security clearance in 2016, he told investigators that “I didn’t take any money from Russia”; however, we learned last season that, in 2015, Flynn received more than $65,000 from Russian sources. Flynn started out season 2 as Trump’s National Security Advisor, in spite of both the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Obama warning Trump about Flynn’s potential conflicts of interest. In the post-inauguration episode, we learned that, after the US sanctioned Russia for its interference in the 2016 elections, Michael Flynn was on the phone with Russian Ambassador Kislyak. In fact, he made 5 phone calls to the ambassador that day, discussing the sanctions — discussions which he later denied having. Sean Spicer claimed that it was only one phone call, and both he and then Vice President elect Pence claimed that the conversations were unrelated to the sanctions. Soon after, Sally Yates at the Department of Justice informed the White House that this was false, and warned the White House that Pence and Flynn were vulnerable to blackmail, since Russia was in a position to prove that Flynn and Pence had lied/spoken falsely about the content of the phone calls. Despite the warnings from Yates, Flynn was not fired (though Yates was, ostensibly due to her opposition to the travel ban), and a few weeks later, Trump denied any knowledge of Flynn’s discussion of sanctions with Kislyak. After the Washington Post revealed that Flynn had discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador, he resigned.

Despite this early departure last season, there’s reason to think that Flynn will be returning next season in the Mueller investigation plot line. Some fans speculate that Trump’s attempts to convince FBI direction Comey to “let Flynn go” will be integral in bringing obstruction of justice charges against the titular antihero Trump — and, of course, we shouldn’t forget Trump’s admission that he fired Comey in order to take pressure off of the Russia investigation — an admission which could also come back to bite him in any potential obstruction of justice charges.