Upload Season 2 Tries to do Too Much with Too Little Bandwidth

Warning: this review contains spoilers for the entirety of Upload Season 2.

Upload Season 2 is the same show we fell in love with way back in 2020 when it first premiered. It’s hilarious, features some wonderful friendships, and is a delight to watch.

Season 2 does the smart thing and takes the time to further develop the supporting characters — Luke, Aleesha, and the AI butler/concierge.

There’s so much ground to cover in an initial season that it made sense that we couldn’t spend a lot of time on the supporting cast. Thankfully, Upload seizes the opportunity of a second season and spends more time on each of them, and lets us get to know them outside of their connections to Nathan and Nora.

Luke continues to be one of my favorite characters, especially his friendship with Nathan. He is a wonderful friend, and I love that this season proves that he’s smarter than he appears. I mean he picks up on Horizen stealing his dreams when no one else did.

Unfortunately, Season 2 overall is not an improvement on Season 1. There’s a variety of issues plaguing the second season, and while they don’t make the show any less fun to watch, those issues keep Upload from reaching its full potential.

The main issue with Upload Season 2 is that it takes on way too much for a short 7 episode season.

Between the character arcs and the multiple season-long mysteries, there’s too much going on. This causes the storylines to be under-developed, making Season 2 into a filler season that is simply setting things up for a yet-to-be-confirmed Season 3.

The season juggles the Ludds, a love triangle, the Nathan murder mystery and its implications on uploads, and, of course, Ingrid’s ongoing saga to have Nathan love her. None of these storylines are resolved in any way over the course of Season 2.

It doesn’t even feel like a chapter has been closed on any of the storylines by the end of the season.

If Nathan, Nora, and the Ludds had completed their mission and the season ended with the recently-downloaded Nathan dying, that would have helped immensely.

It would have been a much more satisfying Season 2 arc for him. The finale would have been a lot more shocking, and Season 2 would’ve fully explored and accomplished something. Instead, we end the season with them mid-mission, so we need Season 3 to happen to have some sort of closure there.

While we all want Nathan and Nora together, Upload Season 2 doesn’t go about it in the right way.

The series takes its time introducing us to Matteo and allows us to watch him and Nora fall in love. Despite his status as a Ludd, you kinda can’t help but like him too. But then, Nora returns to Horizen, and things go sideways.

We watch Nora and Nathan reconnect, and Matteo becomes an afterthought. Then, all of a sudden they are broken up, and there’s nothing in the way between Nora and Nathan (well, except Ingrid).

It makes sense that Nora would have reservations about her relationship with Matteo once they step out of their idyllic low-tech life and back into the real world with Nora acting as an agent for the Ludds. She begins to see a different side of him, and she is also reminded of how much she likes her tech job working with uploads.

So the issue isn’t the fact that they broke up, but rather it’s that we don’t witness any of it happening.

We should’ve slowly started to see the fractures in their relationship, including the moment when Nora decided to end it. Instead, Upload shifts focus to making sure Nora and Nathan are together by the end of the season, and Matteo gets cast aside quickly.

This rush means we are also deprived of some wonderful Nora and Nathan moments. They go from being awkward and a little indifferent to together again. I personally love a slow burn and wish those elements were included more in this season. Give me some sparks, some more lingering looks, and some unresolved sexual tension.

Nora’s relationships and how they are poorly handled are just another example of how Upload Season 2 struggles with pacing. Nora and Matteo should’ve been together for the majority of the season, maybe breaking up by the end, but Nora shouldn’t have gotten together with Nathan.

Lastly, we have to talk about Ingrid. Upload doesn’t seem to know what to do with her other than use her as a tool to further Nathan’s story and keep him well funded so he can stay in Lakeview. That’s her sole purpose on the show, which is a disservice to her.

I really want to like her more. She delivers some humor to the episodes, and there are elements to her that are relatable. We see glimpses of them on Upload Season 2 Episode 4, “Family Day,” when she breaks down in the elevator.

However, that version of Ingrid quickly disappears, and she resumes her role of the villain, the person who is keeping Nathan from doing what he wants and using him for her own goals. We get a bit of whiplash.

By tethering her to Nathan, Ingrid isn’t able to achieve the growth that the season briefly hints that she’s working towards. So, she has her brief moments of progress before she’s forced to regress in order to move Nathan along in his journey.

Until the show is able to find a way to keep Nathan in Lakeview without Ingrid’s funds — and not as a 2GB — it doesn’t seem like this will ever change.

Stray Thoughts

• Tinsley helping the AI guy empathize with the guests is so adorable.
• It’s pretty obvious early on in the season that Nathan would be downloading by the end of it.
• Nora worked at Horizen for how long, and she didn’t think to bring up how Nathan’s consciousness backup would essentially save him once he dies in his downloaded body?
• She’s too smart not to know that.

What did you think of Upload Season 2? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Upload Season 2 is now streaming on Prime Video.

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