Upload ending explained - breaking down the season one finale of Amazon's sci-fi dark comedy
Upload spoilers follow - including its ending.
Upload knows how to leave viewers hanging, doesn't it? The season-one finale of Amazon's dark sci-fi comedy posed as many questions as it answered ahead of a possible season two.
If you haven't finished season one (why would you be here if you hadn't?) it's time to turn back. Major spoilers are incoming, so go and watch it all before reading on.
As it turns out, Nathan (Robbie Amell) isn't the good guy that everyone thought he was. Season one positioned Nathan as a likeable computer coder with big plans to undercut every major corporation's digital afterlife programmes. The season finale, though, proved otherwise.
After being uploaded to Lakeview, the plush, expensive afterlife app, following a supposed auto-driving car accident, Nathan spent much of season one trying to work out if he had actually been murdered. With some of his memories corrupted during the upload process, Nathan hatched a plan with Nora (Andy Allo), his afterlife customer representative and love interest, to stay awake during Lakeview's winter update in episode nine with the hopes of restoring them.
They return, but at a cost. Nathan and Jamie, his business partner, had devised a computer code for their own program, Beyond, that would allow working-class people to live happily in a free digital afterlife and end the monopoly of the money-grabbing afterlife companies.
We're led to believe that it was Jamie who stabbed Nathan in the back, but it was the other way round. After initially turning down a deal from Horizen's Oliver Kannerman – the shady father of Nathan’s girlfriend Ingrid (Allegra Edwards) and the company behind Lakeview – Nathan met Oliver in private. Betraying Jamie, Nathan sold the pair's software for a hefty sum but, suspiciously, didn't receive the money before his death.
Embarrassed and ashamed of his actions, Nathan pretends to have forgotten Nora after the update. This upsets Nora, whose blossoming romance with Nathan – despite living in different planes of existence – was the relationship we'd been rooting for. It was Nora who first noticed Nathan's corrupted memories on his upload, and helped him to remember the events prior to his 'accident', so this is a proverbial kick in the teeth for our heroine.
Nora finds out the truth anyway and refuses to speak to Nathan when he calls her to try and explain what happened. As he does so, a hitman – who was at the scene of Nathan's murder and who stole his hard drive consciousness in an earlier episode – turns up to try and kill Nora as she knows too much. Cue a tense chase sequence that ends with Nathan hacking an elevator, killing the hitman, and saving Nora's life.
While this is going on, Nathan ends his relationship with Ingrid. Nathan grows tired of having his digital existence held in her hands (Ingrid paid for him to be uploaded to Lakeview) and wants to be with Nora instead. Finding out that Ingrid cheated on him with Jamie and supposedly played a role in his death are the final straws. Severing ties with Ingrid, and with no-one to pay for his expensive living environment, Nathan pays his own way and gets transferred to Lakeview's limited 2GB floor.
In a last-ditch effort to win Nora back, Nathan uses his entire monthly allowance to tell her how he feels. Nora, however, wastes his 2GB by expressing her love for him. With Nathan unable to respond after running out of data, Nora is left heartbroken.
Believing that Nathan didn't reciprocate her feelings and hung up, she leaves New York with hookup partner Byron (Matt Ward) in case more hitmen try to track her down.
One final sting in the tail awaits Nathan in the final scene though. Frozen in place – until next month – after using his data up to call Nora, Nathan is surprisingly reanimated. A mysterious blonde adds an extra 1GB to his data plan. Except it is someone we've seen before.
It's Ingrid. Shockingly, she tells Nathan she's uploaded herself to Lakeview too so that they can be together forever. Dumbfounded, Nathan exclaims "What!?" and uses up the entire 1GB he was just gifted. Confused by Nathan being frozen again, Ingrid shouts at him to respond. The lights go out in Nathan's room, and the screen fades to black.
Upload's season-one finale leaves us with many questions. Has Ingrid killed herself to be uploaded, or did she find a way to upload permanently while technically being alive? How will the love triangle between Nathan, Nora, and Ingrid be resolved? What will the future hold for Nathan's and Jamie's Beyond? And who exactly murdered Nathan?
With show creator Greg Daniels confirming that he planned out Upload for at least two seasons, hopefully we won't have to wait long to see how this plays out.
Upload is available on Amazon Prime Video.
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