Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Lindsay Traves | TV | August 25, 2025
Upload, the Greg Daniels helmed Prime Video sci-fi darling, came as both a companion piece to and the antithesis of The Good Place. Both stories of a resort like afterlife took different approaches to getting there, one being earned by financial means and the other by behavior. Where The Good Place was a sun shiny afterlife tale about being the best versions of ourselves, Upload became about humanity’s worst impulses. And where the former became an exploration of the difficulty of being ethical in a capitalistic world, Upload is a story about that world in the late stages and how nothing wasn’t for sale, not even the afterlife.
That’s what made Upload so bleak, but it’s magic was in remaining simultaneously charming and hilarious. Held up by a heavyweight cast of lovable doofuses and the sort of writing and direction that pushed you to ignore continuity “choices,” the show became a beacon of humans doing the best for themselves in a world bent on making everything worse. At the center of the story about opportunistic capitalists and the global branding of everything was a love story between Nathan Brown (the magnetic Robbie Amell in the role of the vain but insecure tech bro) and Nora Anthony (Andy Allo as the angelic employee of Lakeview who melted the tech bro heart) … and also Ingrid Kannerman (Allegra Edwards in a juggernaut performance where she remains a hilarious and lovable version of a an insecure rich blonde woman another show would ask you to hate).
While the push-and-pull story of the financially supportive Ingrid keeping Nathan’s consciousness alive while he fell for his “Angel,” Nora was one of the major conflicts throughout. However, the penultimate season changed things up when an accidental second Nathan was crafted by the Lakeview system, which eventually culminated in a confusing but adorable world where each of the women could have their own Nathan Brown. That is until a Nathan on the run was captured, leaving them back with just one.
The final season finds Nora now the woman without, the one who is able to see the digital version of her boyfriend living happily with Ingrid in Lakeview, a stunning shift of their initial dynamic. Nora fought so hard to have time with the man of her dreams and he was taken away from her as quickly as his physical body had arrived. Broken and grieving, Nora struggles to muster strength to attend the wedding of her boyfriend’s copy to her former romantic nemesis and current close friend, trying desperately to be happy for them while feeling destroyed inside. Her strength comes to her when a force ghost version of her Nathan appears to her claiming to still be out there somewhere.
Nora and Nathan already lived their “one day together” dream earlier, but the finale gave them a more fulsome send off with one last day in each others’ arms. Her combined grief and joy will feel real to anyone who’s begged for one last day to say goodbye to a loved one, someone who carries the knowledge that saying goodbye again can be even harder but that every second leading up to it would be worth it.
A line break for a moment for tears.
And the meta experience of this loss for Nora is reflected in the criminal briefness of the fourth and final season of the show. At a truncated four episodes, this season comes and goes as quickly as a downloaded loved one holding onto their deteriorating physical body. There isn’t much time to launch a new story of corporate espionage, new moves for our beloved secondary characters like Aleesha (Zainab Johnson) or AI Guy (Owen Daniels), or greater exploration into the dawn of humanity under the thumb of technology, but there’s time spent sending everyone off while not disregarding the satire that made the show functional in the first place. Racing against a Lakeview that’s sucking pennies from its guests desperate for immortality, the main cast faces off against the face of a more predatory AI that sees no need for those pesky human consciousnesses. There isn’t time to explore the depths of this sort of capitalistic corruption like seasons prior, but Upload remains true to itself in its slide to the finish line by imagining a world where capitalism remains unchecked.
Sometimes a warning but always a laugh, Upload began as a bleak satire about the darkest and impending version of our world that then grew into a story about finding love in the midst of all of it. Chosen families, growing friendships, and romance across physical barriers became secondary themes that overtook the pitch-black comedy of paying for functional brain time. Nora and Nathan are a story of love everlasting, and Nathan and Ingrid are a story of growth and change. And we can’t ignore Nathan’s other great love, Luke (Kevin Bigley), whose send off is worthy of him, and makes us hope for an afterlife just as worthy. As one of the greatest darling television shows exits this plane, we can only hope that the digital version of Upload will remain infinitely accessible and not become victim to a tech giant capitalistic choice to erase it from this world.
The fourth and final season of Upload begins airing on Prime Video today, August 25, 2025
