Upload Season 1 Review: This Dark Rom-Com Savagely Subverts “Happily Ever After”

Robbie Amell has a face made for romcoms. His charming and chiseled persona exemplifies the ideal lead for YA romantic comedy classics like The Duff. 

And that is how Amazon’s newest series Upload pulls the best bait and switch of the year.

With Amell at the top of the call sheet playing Nathan Brown, we think we’re going to get fluffy, feel-good content, with just a bit of light real-world sincerity thrown in at the end.  

The joke is on, and for, us. What we actually get from Upload is a fiercely woven tale of grotesque corporate greed’s impact on human existence. 

It really is funny. It is deeply romantic too. But, the ten-episode series has far more The Boys and Devs in its DNA than it has The Good Place.

This show is brutal. 

That brutality is all the more effective because it subverts the expectations viewers bring to the series. 

It takes a second to realize that the show is really going to go there.

When Ingrid’s recently sharpened shoulder blades pierce her designer cushions during an on-camera interview about dating someone who is already in the afterlife, yep, that’s when we know: Upload‘s striking iron is searing hot. 

I sit watching the entire first season with my mouth agape because I DID NOT EXPECT ALL THIS. 

That’s how they catch me unaware so that by the end I’m a sobbing mess looking online to make sure there aren’t episodes I’m somehow missing because it can’t really rip my heart out and just leave it there to choke. (oh, dear viewer, it can)

But, seriously, it is a romantic comedy. It’s just a romantic dark-as-night comedy.

The well-developed and beautifully acted relationship between Amell’s Nathan Brown and Andy Allo’s Nora Antony provides TR (tangible reality) lenses to their VR lives.

Both of them have smudges on those lenses, as does every real person.

Nathan didn’t exactly consent to be uploaded in the first place. He is literally owned by his girlfriend. His first reaction to his eternal bliss is to throw himself into the void.

Nora is slaving away at a job where she relies on uber-wealthy afterlifers to rate her five-stars so she has the chance to get an employee discount for her dad to upload to Lakeview, even though he just wants to go to regular heaven where he believes his wife is.  

Smudgy, smudgy lenses. 

The thing is, those smudges open up a set of conflicts that are so believable that when these two people fall in love, it is the easiest thing in the world to believe in that too. 

It is satire, so the stakes are enhanced. But, the core source of the humor is real.

Matching with someone you rather loathe on a dating app, but then hooking up with him anyway because you need to relieve sexual frustration? Oh, yes. That tracks. 

Having an orgasm during sex with the guy you rather loathe because you’re thinking about the guy you rather love and that causing loathe guy to actually want to be with you, right when you don’t want that at all? That tracks too!

The love that Nora and Nathan build is never the target of the humor. Instead, the bullseye is on the socioeconomic inequality that surrounds them. 

Their sweet moments are even more adorable because of the bleak scenarios Upload juxtaposes them against; light appears brighter in the darkness. 

It is such a pleasure to watch people slowly reveal their true selves to each other. It is beautiful that the memory Nathan wants to see over again is Nora pranking him about walking on water. Nora’s infinite playlist of afterlife hacks bonds them together. 

Nora touching Nathan for the first time is as compelling and lusty as other shows’ full-on sex scenes. What bubbles up is a delicately profound message about the need for true human connection.

Considering where the world is at right now, that message really cuts deep. 

The crew at Lakeview illustrates the limitations of wealth to provide happiness (paying hundreds of dollars for a sneeze is a strangely powerful way to highlight privilege) and the limitations of the wealthy to have empathy. 

Luke considers Nathan his best friend and he reels at even the idea of visiting Nathan in 2G. There seems to be no exception to the rule; wealthy people remain shallow in the afterlife.

Significantly, the patrons at Lakeview are overwhelmingly white and the low-wage workers we get to know are decidedly not. The show is race-conscious without explicitly making points about intersectionality. 

There is evidence of intentional subtle messaging peppered throughout Upload and alongside some wild content. For example, the uploaded people turning into Lego versions of themselves is hilarious.

Nathan’s romp into the world of IR is even funnier. 

Fran is both subtle and outlandish. Her one-woman quest is pretty ridiculous and the way she dies is super campy.

At the same time, in a world where everything and everyone is altered by technology, Fran is totally natural. She’s a rich character who, if handled by less skillful storytelling gloves, could easily be all absurdity and no resonance. 

My ambivalence about the ending of Season 1 is extreme.

On one hand, I absolutely hate it. Where is my happy ending?

Nora pours her heart out and Nathan loves her back! But, in an afterlife version of a Shakespearean tragedy, Nathan is frozen in non-existence before he can respond, leaving Nora to believe he doesn’t feel the same way. 

Ingrid is so pathetic that she uploads herself just to be in Lakeview with Nathan where she can continue to control his entire life. There is no justice in that single tear, or in Ingrid’s tech support screams, or in the Poconos. 

On the other hand, the sheer brutality of the ending culminates a season-long effort to subvert the idea that people have of heaven, of a perfect afterlife, of THE happy ending. 

In reality, life does to us what Nathan does to the brute after Nora: it mercilessly bursts our flesh with casual little movements administered by a detached and biased master. The final episode gives me a reality check I didn’t know I needed and I’m still not sure I want. 

Upload is surprising in the best possible way. Its unexpected depth and indictment of economic inequality is a huge upgrade on the charming and fluffy romcom the show is initially coded as.

Stray Thoughts

• Aleesha tries to help Luke get the egg, but all he sees is what he didn’t get. White male privilege is alive and well in heaven.
• The cliffhanger is unbearable. There is no universe where it is acceptable for there not to be an Upload Season 2. 
• Andy Allo is an absolute star. 
• Dylan’s parents refusing to let him grow up is an interesting storyline about holding onto loss. It is undercut by the unnecessary “accidentally a girl” mishap. It’s not offensive. But, it’s not great either.
• Byron is a satire of the tamed bad boy character and I feel called out. 
• Lucy is a real Karen.
• I ship Nathan and Nora so very hard. I hope you put that hug suit in your luggage, Nora! 

What did you think of this episode of Upload? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Upload is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

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