Upload star Andy Allo initially had a hard time accepting how her character, Nora, ends the series — but eventually came around to seeing showrunner Greg Daniels’ “genius.”
Warning: Spoilers below for season 4 of Upload.
“When I read the ending, I was pissed! It was like, ‘What? No, no, no, no. Nora needs her own happy ending,’” Allo, 36, exclusively told Luxury Handbag Shopping ahead of the show’s season 4 premiere. “I was so upset. And then I sat with it a bit more and I realized, ‘Wow, actually, this ending is genius.’ It was so heartbreaking, the goodbye between Nora and Nathan, but also the reason I say it’s genius is because what is more loving than being able to let somebody go and to say, ‘I love you so much that I want you to live your life?’ That was like, ‘OK wow. Greg [Daniels], you nailed it.”
Upload premiered on Prive Video in 2020. The sci-fi comedy is set in a future where humans can upload their own consciousness into a digital afterlife called Lakeview. The show follows Nathan (Robbie Amell) as he is uploaded by his girlfriend Ingrid (Allegra Edwards) after a fatal car accident. There, he meets his “angel” — a helper and guide from the real world — Nora, and the pair fall in love while uncovering secrets surrounding his death and the reality behind Lakeview’s parent company, Horizon.
The four-part final season released on Monday, August 25, and picks up after Nathan is allegedly “destroyed” by Horizon. But after he appears to Nora in a ghost-like manner in her living room, she embarks on a quest to find him — and bring him back to the realm of the living. Although she’s successful and the lovers are reunited, his body ultimately fails, and the pair choose not to “re-download” his body again. They end the series tying the knot in a virtual reality before he dies in her arms and passes on naturally.
Allo told Us that while she would have “loved” a more traditional happily ever after for Nora — and recognizes the ending will be polarizing for some viewers — she thinks what Daniels crafted for the characters is a “beautiful” footnote for their stories.
“In the beginning, [Nora] was all about uploading and trying to get her dad to upload, and then falling in love with an uploaded guy,” Allo said, referring to Norah’s season 1 job at Horizon. “And so now at the end, to be like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to upload you again and go through this, and I’m actually OK with you dying for real.’ I think it’s such a beautiful arc.”
There’s also the subject of “clone” Nathan, the second Nathan that was recreated by his ex Ingrid (Allegra Edwards). “Clone” Nathan is a version of the character pre-Lakeview, meaning he is a lot more self-centered, vain and, well, perfect for Ingrid. The pair tie the knot in the final episodes, riding off into the sunset and starring on their own reality show. A stark difference from Nora and real Nathan’s unfortunate end.
“I guess one Nathan needed to be happy, right?” Allo said with a laugh. “I mean, I think that’s interesting, too, even just the journey that Ingrid went on, of really wanting this guy and then doing everything to save him. And then he falls in love with somebody else. And then she has to move on, but then she gets her version of Nathan, who is all about her. I think that’s just perfect.”
Allo added that every character essentially “got what we needed, not necessarily what they wanted,” and that’s a good thing. “I love that,” she confessed.
Although Nathan’s physical body is clearly gone, some viewers will find hope in the show’s final scene when his memories of his romance with Nora transmit onto her computer. What happens from there remains unknown, but Allo thinks there’s a possibility Nora tries to bring his former love back eventually.
“The way I imagine it is that Nora goes on living her life, whether she becomes a lawyer that advocates for the less fortunate, and she’s this activist. I imagine her having a full life, maybe she has kids and finds love again, and then at a certain point in her life, her husband is gone,” she explained. “She lived her whole life. She’s still alive. She’s by herself and she decides to rebuild Nathan and now they both get to end their life together and live those final moments of whatever time she has left.”
She added, “I just imagine that it comes back around, but now she gets to tell them all about the cool stuff she’s done and they get to enjoy these moments of their lives together at the end.”
Happy ending or not, Nathan and Nora have undoubtedly resonated deeply with fans over the show’s four season run — drawing comparisons to Daniels’ other epic love story, The Office’s Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer). For Allo, Nathan and Nora offer viewers a “real” love story that feels easy to root for.
“There’s a realness to them, I think, in in their dynamic, in the difficulties,” she told Us. “Because you think back [to] the beginning, Nora was judging Nathan so hard – and how real is that? Anytime you go on a date, or you are swiping, or you first meet people, there’s sometimes you judge. We can’t help it. And then you start to get to know somebody, and you’re like, ‘Actually, hey, you’re kind of cool.’ I just think their dynamic, their journey, was just so rooted in the human experience.”
Allo added that there’s an additional layer of death to the pairing due to Nathan having already died by the time they meet, making them, in a sense, star crossed lovers.
‘Right away you’re talking about life and death, and you’re talking in such a vulnerable way of like, ‘How do I capture something when you’re not here, but you’re here and I can feel you?’” she said. “So I just think it was, right off the bat, there was such depth and such realness. And that is the way of Greg [Daniels]. And it was just so relatable.”
All episodes of Upload are available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
