That was my first thought as well. If someone asked me that during an interview, I might assume the type annotation for the return type was something meant to throw me off.

The value being returned in the correct type is especially important in languages without static type checking. The next line may try to add the dictionary you returned to an integer or something crazy.

Run mypy on it and see if it complains. If it does I think it will even tell you what type is being emitted instead.

The question wasn’t what mypy will do. The question was what type will the function return.

mypy error: function 'x' returns type 'y' expected type 'z'

I don't recall the exact message but I think it will emit something along those lines.

The question wasn’t what mypy will do. The question was what type will the function return.