The third season of Amazon’s Upload failed to meet the standard set by its predecessor. The first two seasons had really cool world-building, and they were doing great with their commentary on artificial intelligence and modern capitalism. But the third season seems to have lost its way. In the end, it became more about the love triangle between the leads than anything else. I mean, we are interested in how Nora and Ingrid are managing their relationship with a digital Nathan Brown, but making an entire show about it seems to be a bit much. It was only at the end of Season 3 when the main conflict of the show returned, but we guess it’s just to leave the narrative on a cliffhanger so that it can be renewed for a fourth season, which seems less likely depending on the viewership of the third season. Nevertheless, let’s take a look at the important events of Upload Season 3 and what we can expect next.
Spoiler Alert
The Curious Case of Two Nathans
In the previous season, the real Nathan Brown had downloaded his consciousness into his own body, which was regenerated by his former girlfriend, Ingrid Kannerman. The reason for the download was that Nathan wanted to access the Freeyond backdoor, which he believed was stolen from his own program, Beyond, that he had created with his partner, Jamie. Through Nora’s connection with the activist group, Ludds, Nathan found out that billionaire mastermind David Choak had been trying to rig the American election by offering free uploads in the swing states. Finally, it was revealed to us that David Choak and other big players in the game had planned a mass execution of the potential voters through Freeyond, and these privileged billionaires had no intention of providing any digital afterlife to these innocent people. Nathan and Nora finally intervened and stopped David from pulling off his evil schemes, yet in the meantime, many innocent people lost their lives and turned into ash, dust, and hard disks.
In the absence of Nathan, the new intern, Tinsely, freaked out and restored Nathan’s backup stored on the Horizon’s server, because of which a previous version of Nathan’s digital consciousness returned to Lakeview. The backup copy didn’t remember anything after the Family Day event, so Ingrid saw it as a lucrative opportunity to get back her lost relationship. She started dating the backup copy inside Lakeview while the real Nathan and Nora gave their relationship a chance on the outside. Meanwhile, three tragic deaths took place at the beginning of the Upload season 3. Nora’s ex-boyfriend and an important member of the Ludds were shot to death by Detective Sato. Later, Nora killed Sato in order to protect herself. The third death had been a mysterious one. Nathan found out that his ex-business partner, Jamie, had died, though the show didn’t shed any light on his demise. Perhaps he was killed by David Choak and his minions.
What Happens to David Choak?
Mr. Choak had seen the real Nathan trespassing in his office at night, which was when he got suspicious of his activities. He tried to investigate him further when Ivan Spelich, an angel of Lakeview and an important member of the Ludds, intervened and downloaded his digital consciousness on a hard disk. Mr. Choak disappeared from Lakeview, but he will probably return as Horizon keeps a backup of all its clients, just like Nathan. In the meantime, Nathan and Nora got their hands on Mr. Choak’s hard disk, through which they were able to access his memories and find evidence that would help them in building a case against Horizon and Freeyond.
What Happens Between Aleesha and Karina Silva?
Aleesha’s manager, Lucy Slack, grew a tad attached to her in the previous season, after which she requested that she handle her position while she was away. Aleesha proved her talent, and in no time, she rose up the ranks in Horizon. She even got the opportunity to attend the prestigious meeting of Founders Grove, which gave her the platform to share her ideas with some really powerful but morally corrupt men. It was at this meeting that she came across an important member of Horizon named Karina, who became quite fond of Aleesha, not only professionally but romantically, too. The two started dating each other, but soon Aleesha could see how controlling Karina was. It might be possible that she only showed interest in Aleesha so that she could find out the inner secrets of Lakeview and spy on Nora. Through Aleesha, Karina met Luke Crossley, who, like an enthusiastic fool, revealed all the hacks and glitches in Lakeview that he had been exploiting till now. Karina didn’t waste a moment in rectifying all those glitches and even got Luke banned from getting back his special privileges.
In the end, Aleesha finally discovered Karina’s real face, who had been using her from day one. As soon as the realization struck Aleesha, she decided to help her friend Nora in the ongoing trial against Freeyond and, therefore, concocted a plan with Luke to steal the mail from Karina’s personal laptop. They finally got some confidential mails that were exchanged between the powerful players in the Freeyond conspiracy, and Aleesha didn’t waste a moment sharing all the evidence with Nora. Aleesha had asked Nora to tell the court that the evidence came from the whistleblower, Karina Silva, so that she could take her revenge on the woman, but none of it really happened.
After the case was settled, Karina came to Lucy’s office and demanded to see Aleesha. By the looks of it, it seems that Karina has somehow convinced the management that she wasn’t the one who leaked the confidential information. Instead, it was Aleesha who did it. She might throw Aleesha out of the company, but for Aleesha, it would still be a winning situation as she didn’t really like working for Horizon. In another scenario, Karina can come to the office to meet Aleesha one last time before leaving the company. Or maybe none of the above scenarios will really take place, and Karina will secretly spy on Aleesha, waiting for the right opportunity to catch her red-handed. Whatever Aleesha’s fate is, it will be revealed in the fourth season. Additionally, the third season also hinted at a budding romance between Luke and Aleesha, and it might be explored in the next season. Luke has always liked Aleesha, both physically and emotionally, but he was never really able to express his feelings. Maybe he has been waiting for Aleesha to reciprocate so that he wouldn’t ruin his friendship by trying to be more.
What Happens at the Trial?
Through David Choak’s memories, Nathan and Nora found out that he, along with the owner of the Horizon, was involved in the Freeyond scheme, in which many innocent people lost their lives. Choak wanted his favored party to win the election so that he could introduce the HR32255 law in the state that would allow the uploads to work. His main goal was to replace his workers with the uploads, which would allow his company to save half a billion a year. Yes, that was the strategy all along to control the government and to exploit the digital afterlife. Nathan and Nora contacted Nathan’s ex-girlfriend, Holden, who happened to be a lawyer. Nora had told her everything about the Freeyond scam, which she took to her firm, and she decided to sue the company for its illegal practices. However, they couldn’t use Nathan’s testimony or Choak’s memories in court as they were the legal property of Horizon, and they wouldn’t allow them to destroy its own image in the country.
Holden’s law firm tried to bring another key witness, named Dr. Kapoor, who had given fake pills to Nathan Brown to stop him from exploding. In the end, it was revealed that the download process was actually a success, but companies like Horizon bribed Dr. Kapoor and sabotaged the process in order to save their own business model. The thing was, if every rich person were to have the opportunity to download themselves into a younger body, then why would they enslave themselves in a digital afterlife like Lakeview? Dr. Kapoor was going to testify the same in court before he was killed by Choak and his partners.
With no option left, Holden decided to approach Ingrid and bring in testimonies from her, but that, too, ended in a total disaster. Fortunately, they got their hands on Karina’s confidential mail, which freaked out Freeyond’s lawyer, who settled the matter outside the court and asked the firm to seal the documents without any further discussion. So Aleesha’s hard work didn’t really pay off, and she might lose her job for nothing. Additionally, Holden just wanted to get justice for the clients she was representing and wasn’t really interested in stopping these corrupt digital life companies; as a result, Nathan didn’t get his life back and was still a property of Horizon, who could take him away anytime they wanted. And that was exactly what they did.
What is Betta?
At the end of Upload Season 3, Horizon changed its entire branding and replaced it with Betta. It was obviously a publicity stunt to bury their past mistakes and make the public believe that they have changed for better. But they are not, and that’s a fact. Companies that exploit their consumers would go to any lengths to protect their revenue share, and we have seen several examples of this in real life as well. A new brand is just a means to clean the slate so that they can trap people once again in their cycle of exploitation.
Under the new hood, “Betta,” Horizon made an announcement to introduce a new work wing called “Workload,” through which they could force its uploads to work in the digital afterlife. Trust me, that won’t be by choice and would be compulsory compliance for all members except for the likes of David Choak. It wouldn’t be wrong to assume that everything is going according to Choak’s grand schemes. Previously, we had found that the government was ending funding for veteran uploads, because of which Luke had to find a job to sustain his lavish digital life. It was just an example of what horrors we could witness in the next season when the entire Lakeview would turn into a prison mill where the uplaods would be exploited for cheap labor. Hopefully, the voters would be able to see through these corrupt practices and wouldn’t vote to pass the law. Additionally, Nathan and Nora would do their best to stop Choak and the likes of him at all costs.
What Happens to Nathan in the End?
The third season of Upload was moving towards a happy ending until the tragedy took place. In the final episodes, Ingrid finally agreed to marry the backup copy of Nathan Brown, and he couldn’t be happier to start a new journey with his longtime girlfriend. However, their dreams were soon shattered as Horizon decided to make changes to their policy after losing the lawsuit. They decided to delete all the illegal copies of the uploads, and the only one we knew so far was of Nathan Brown’s. So, a kind of SWAT team infiltrated Lakeview, where Horizon’s boss himself appeared in front of Nathan and pulled him by the ear, probably to lock him up somewhere. A similar thing happened in the real world. After the trial, Nathan and Nora were happy that they were able to stop Freeyond and save millions of lives. Perhaps Nathan wanted to propose to his Nora too at this point before he was taken away by Horizon security guards, as technically, his entire body belonged to them. He was locked away for days with no contact with Nora or his relatives.
During Upload Season 3’s ending, a “Nathan,” (we don’t know which one) contacted his mother and Nora to reveal to them that the Horizon had destroyed one Nathan. He didn’t reveal which one, but we can speculate on theories regarding the same. We strongly believe it was the backup one because Horizon already had a backup of that digital afterlife in their system, and destroying or resurrecting him would be just a matter of seconds. Additionally, they wouldn’t harm the downloaded Nathan, as he was considered a miracle in the real world for being the first-ever successful download. However, this also gives the company a reason to destroy him, as they didn’t want the public to know about the success of the downloading process. In that scenario, everyone would leave Lakeview, and their entire business model would crumble.
We strongly doubt that they would destroy the downloaded Nathan for two broad reasons. First of all, there is no backup of Nathan’s memories, and if they get destroyed, there is no way to retrieve them. Secondly, Horizon might have abducted Nathan to get the whereabouts of David Choak, who was stolen from the Horizon server earlier in the series. We had seen how Karina kidnapped Nora to find out about the same, and maybe they kidnapped Nathan this time to interrogate him further. So, the downloaded Nathan really holds some crucial information and might be the one who survives in the end. For the other one, he might have been captured and destroyed by the company, and in that scenario, Ingrid would lose the only love she had in all these years. She might want to restart the entire journey again only if she isn’t exhausted from chasing Nathan for so many years. Whatever the case might be, we might get to know more about it in the fourth season of Upload.
