This season finale had me sitting in front of the TV saying “what?” a couple of times - a sign that this was another great episode!

The episode begins with a flashback, like nearly all the episodes this season did, of Tyrell and Elliot meeting at Coney Island. Here is where Rami Malek shows off his Emmy award winning acting skills by imitating Christian Slater’s character Mr. Robot.

Back to the future, Tyrell and Elliot visit an abandoned warehouse in Manhattan. This is where we learn what Stage 2 is and Elliot learns that the Dark Army is involved. More on Stage 2 below.

Darlene is alive! Unfortunately, Cisco was not as lucky as Darlene and is no longer with us. RIP Cisco. While the FBI interrogates Darlene, Dom’s boss gives a nod to USA Network, “characters like you are not welcome here”. Nice one, Sam! After convincing her boss to let her deal with Darlene alone, Dom shows Darlene the FBI’s suspect board and what do you know, Tyrell is smack in the middle! Will Darlene cave?

Joanna meanwhile is working on a plan completely unrelated to Stage 2, getting revenge for her missing husband. We now know who lives at the address Elliot tracked the cell phone back to that was used to call Joanna. Scott Knowles, CTO of E Corp is the one that has been sending Joanna gifts and calling her, not Tyrell! She goes over to his apartment to confront him and really pushes his buttons. She says some nasty things about his deceased wife and Scott loses it on Joanna, beating her to a pulp. At this point I was really afraid he killed her, but thankfully she is still alive, which will hopefully mean we will get to see Joanna again in season 3! Joanna’s plan worked and this really proved to me that there is nothing Joanna won’t do to get their way! We also know why she kept her bartender boyfriend, who is really upset Scott beat her up and wants Scott to pay for what he did to Joanna. Joanna wants him to lie and say that Scott is the one that killed his own pregnant wife. Sam Esmail should have named Joanna Ruth instead, this woman is RUTHless! In the meantime, Tyrell doesn’t seem to care about Joanna very much - he is too consumed with “doing what is necessary”.

“Thank goodness they’re giving us these UPSs for the power surges” Tyrell says to Elliot before he begins to show Elliot what they have accomplished.

Stefanie: What is a UPS? I am guessing they aren’t referring to the shipping company…

Jaromir Horejsi, senior malware analyst: UPS, or Uninterruptible Power Sources do what their name suggests. They are back up power systems that keep your device running when power is cut. These are often found and used in server rooms and data centers to make sure servers remain up and running at all times. Some of our colleagues here at Avast even have USPs set up for their computers.

The Dark Army, Tyrell and Mr. Robot have planned an attack on the E Corp building in New York. E Corp has reverted back to paper files after the 5/9 attack and is moving all of the documents to the office in New York. Stage 2 is the second phase of the 5/9 attack, a stage that should finish what they started. Tyrell mentions malware to Elliot and Elliot asks him “what malware?”. Elliot is the one that created it and it seems the plan comes back to him suddenly. He says “designed to override the safety limits on the UPS devices and overcharge the lead acid batteries in the battery room. Filling the space up with hydrogen gas. After breaking the fans and cutting off back up power, malicious firmware repeatedly re-engages the UPS auto transformer, creating a spark to ignite an explosion.”

That’s right, Stage 2 is a plan to blow up E Corp’s building where all of their paper documents are being stored. It turns out, Elliot made Stage 2 possible when he hacked E Corp and gave them backdoor access. The femtocell malware Elliot coded for Darlene is what gave them access to E Corp’s internal network. Elliot being the good guy that he is, is against harming innocent people. He tries to stop Tyrell from going forward with the plan. Tyrell pulls a gun on Elliot and that is when Elliot begins questioning whether Tyrell is real or a figment of his imagination.

Unfortunately, Elliot is wrong. Tyrell is very real and very much alive and capable of shooting Elliot.

We know the shot didn’t kill Elliot, and we learn that Angela is much more involved in Stage 2 then we all thought. Tyrell calls her from, what we can assume, based on the situation, a hospital (at least I hope he brought Elliot to a hospital) and tells her that Elliot will be okay. Angela ensures Tyrell that he did the right thing by shooting Elliot. The news segment “What is really happening?”, running in the background in Angela’s apartment, is exactly what I was thinking while watching this scene. What is going on!?

Just when I thought everything was over, Trenton and Mobley appear! Nice to have them back on the show, but let’s see how long they last now that Leon - Dark Army assassin Leon - has joined the party.

I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait for season 3! If you are interested, Sam Esmail gave an interesting interview to Variety about last night's episode.

Let us know how you think things will unfold next summer in the comments section below :)

Image via: USA Network @whoismrrobot