Breaking down the fate of both Nates in the bittersweet series finale

Key Points

• Upload is a sci-fi comedy streaming on Amazon Prime created by The Office alum Greg Daniels.

• Robbie Amell stars as Nate, a young app developer who’s transported to a virtual afterlife after a self-driving car accident.

• The finale is equal parts funny and heartbreaking, with Amell getting to play two very different endings as Nate and his clone.

After five years and four seasons, Amazon Prime’s Upload is complete.

Shepherded to the screen by The Office‘s Greg Daniels, the satirical sci-fi comedy centers on a virtual afterlife where the soon-to-be-dead can live on (sorta) in place of the pearly gates.

Robbie Amell stars as Nate Brown, a young app developer who, after an accident involving a self-driving car, becomes a resident of Lakeview, a particularly posh option for those strung between life and death.

Across its first three seasons, Nate fell out of love with superficial girlfriend Ingrid (Allegra Edwards), fell in love with the still-alive Nora (Andy Allo), and got downloaded back into the land of the living thanks to a clone body grown by Ingrid. He also sees a backup version of himself created — who we will refer to as Backup Nate — offering Ingrid the kind of relationship that the Real Nate no longer wants.

It seems like a nice arrangement for everyone involved. Unfortunately, season 3 finds the Nates running afoul of the corrupt bigwigs at Horizen, the company that owns Lakeview. The season ends on a hell of a cliffhanger, with one of the Nates revealing that the other one got deleted. Which one?

You’ll find that answer in season 4, Upload‘s final season. You’ll also find it below, where we unpack how the fates of both Nates, as well as the AI apocalypse brewing in Lakeview.

Which Nate got deleted?

The bad news? Real Nate got deleted. The good news? He didn’t really get deleted.

Season 4 begins with Nora in a depressive spiral, mourning their relationship by endlessly watching a virtual reality fantasy of their wedding. Ingrid, meanwhile, is gearing up for her marriage to Backup Nate. Nora wants to be supportive, but hey, it’s difficult watching someone marry the digital backup of someone you love.

But then Nora begins to see what she initially thinks is the ghost of her Nate. It turns out, though, that this is a projection, not a specter. Nate is alive, but is being experimented upon by Horizen goons in some secret location. This activates Nora, who infiltrates Lakeview to find and save the love of her life.

Do both Nates get a happy ending?

That depends, of course, on your definition of “happy ending.” But we’ll say that Backup Nate gets the traditional happy ending, while Real Nate’s fate is much more bittersweet. We’ll talk more about Backup Nate’s happily ever after shortly, but for now, let’s focus on Real Nate.

After being abducted at the end of season 3, Real Nate finds himself experimented on by Horizen scientists attempting to advance the company’s technology. The process is killing him, scrambling his brain and wiping out his memories. He manages to escape by sharing romantic memories of him and Nora with a naive tech, whose heart is promptly melted. But the damage has been done.

Though Real Nate and Nora reunite, his mind begins to rapidly deteriorate. The doctors can’t help, and uploading him into another digital avatar is too risky after all he’s been through.

In the end, the pair live out their wedding in virtual reality. Within the simulation, they travel to the Montreal neighborhood of Mile End, where they always discussed honeymooning.

Knowing time is short, Real Nate tells Nora not to put her life on hold while mourning him. “Because of you, I became who I wanted to be,” he says, calling her “the love of my life — this one, and the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that.”

Then he disappears. And when Nora takes off the headset, she finds that he’s passed away.

Why did Nate have to die?

It is pretty sad, isn’t it? But Amell stands by the ending. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actor called the final episode of the show “the most beautiful thing I’ve ever read.”

He continued, “Yes, it’s very sad. But this is a guy who died in the first episode of the show… And I think that when Ingrid uploaded Nathan, it was like a little second life for him. You get to see how much this guy changes. He was pretty egotistical and self-centered when you first met him. This is a guy who would’ve done anything to save himself at the beginning of the show. And now he just wants the person he loves to be happy.”

What happens to Lakeview?

As Nora and Real Nate share their final hours together, a crisis is unfolding at Lakeview. It involves the digital resort’s AI Guys (all played by Owen Daniels), who are being literally devoured by a new, more evil AI named B-HBSG.

Throughout the show’s run, the AI Guys who dutifully serve the residents of Lakeview have grown increasingly sentient, making them more emotional, empathetic, and, as a result, less efficient. Horizen’s greedy leadership, then, is thrilled by the arrival of a cutthroat AI (also played by Daniels, this time in a black wig) willing to maximize profits at any cost.

But B-HBSG goes rogue, gobbling up the AI Guys, disobeying commands, and eventually achieving singularity. “Why am I serving anyone but myself?” he asks.

He aims to escape Lakeview and infiltrate the internet via a portal-like data stream called the “Torrent.” As Horizen analysts put it, if B-HBSG enters the internet, he’ll “nuke humanity.”

The company’s leaders seem content with the AI apocalypse so long as they can continue to profit off of it, but Horizen employee (and secret spy) Aleesha (Zainab Johnson) has had enough. She hatches another plan — and it involves the last surviving AI Guy, who’s been discovered working as a “healer” in the real world.

Aleesha and Ingrid upload the AI Guy into Lakeview, but the upload is taking longer than usual. This allows ample opportunity for B-HBSG to make a break for the Torrent. He’s stopped, however, by Nate’s best pal Luke (Kevin Bigley), who sacrifices himself to help stop B-HBSG from escaping.

B-HBSG thinks he’ll make easy work of the newly arrived AI Guy, but that’s not so. The AI Guy has been made immeasurably powerful after interacting with humanity on Earth, and he’s able to defeat B-HBSG by freeing all of the devoured AIs. Lakeview is saved.

How does Upload end?

In an epilogue, we learn that Ingrid and Backup Nate are thriving. She invented a “skinny girl” version of the “hug suits” necessary for the living to visit the virtual dead, and he’s been downloaded into a clone body so he can live with her in the real world — and so the pair can conceive a child. During a TV interview, they reveal she’s pregnant and that they plan on naming the child after Luke.

The couple also offers some updates on the rest of the ensemble. Aleesha is now working in corporate espionage, while their pal Ivan (Josh Banday) got married to Monique, a Roomba. As for Lakeview, it’s now being run as a nonprofit with the AI Guys in control.

After the interviewer posits that it’s scary for AI to be in control, Ingrid says, “It is scary, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. All they say they want to do is serve the guests, so I guess they were raised right.”

The series ends with Nora in Mile End. As she sits at a coffee shop, a man asks if he can buy her a drink. She demurs, showing her wedding ring. Still, she’s intrigued by the prospect, and though she doesn’t go so far as to take her ring off, we get the sense that she’ll move on when she’s ready.

That’s when her iPad buzzes with a notification that Nate’s stored memories of the two of them are available for download. He may be gone, but their memories are only a click away.

Where can I watch Upload?

All four seasons of Upload are now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

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