Upload Season 4 Ending Explained: Is Nathan Dead?

The fourth and final season of Prime Video’s ‘Upload’ gives a farewell to Nathan Brown and the residents of Lakeview through a four-episode season that tries to tie up all loose ends. The episode begins sometime after the events of the third season, which ended on a shocking note with the IRL Nathan and the digital Nathan being taken captive by Horizen, because technically, both of them are company property. The cliffhanger centred on the survival of one Nathan, with the other being killed off by the evil corporation. This season begins with an answer to that question, but things become much more complicated by the end of the season. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Upload Season 4 Plot Synopsis

The fourth season of ‘Upload’ begins with a wedding. Nora and Nathan stand at the altar where they exchange wedding vows. However, this happy scene seems to be unfolding over Nora’s VR because her Nathan is dead. It seems that Horizen decided to keep the digital Nathan in Lakeview, who is now preparing to get married to Ingrid. Meanwhile, Nora is wallowing in her grief, refusing to come out of her room, and spending most of her time in the VR, living the moment of their what-should-have-been wedding over and over again.

Eventually, when she comes out of the room, she has a vision of Nathan; only later does she discover that it is not a vision. It is a projection of Nathan, which means that it is being projected from somewhere, and he is actually alive. Meanwhile, Ingrid and Nathan get married, while Aleesha joins Oscar Mayer Intel as their spy to bring down Horizen for good. Initially, she does it out of fear for her life, but then, she realizes that the evil corporation is churning out new ways to squeeze the money out of every living person on earth while the billionaires behind it get richer and the innocent lose their lives and money.

They start Workload for Lakeview residents and eventually roll out an offer to their human employees to shift to Workload, leading poor Tinsley to lose her life and go digital without getting much say in the matter. This also leads them to lay off the majority of their human employees, and Aleesha realises that she must do something before she is fired as well. The bosses also realise that the AI guy is too friendly and compassionate, so they replace him with a black-haired new AI who comes up with new ways to make money, and the company loves it. That is, until the new AI turns into evil AI.

Is Nora’s Nathan Dead?

At the beginning of the season, it is believed that Nora’s Nathan is dead. However, by the end of the second episode, it turns out that Horizen faked his death, and he is being kept alive in a facility where they conduct experiments on humans. Nathan is trapped there and is being used as a lab rat to study the human brain and come up with new things that will allow the billionaire overlords to live an eternal life in all sorts of ways. Unfortunately for Nathan, this means being subjected to such torture that it goes beyond the immense pain he experiences. Each cycle of having his brain burned out means losing his memories. Eventually, he succeeds in escaping, thanks to a Horizen employee who shows him kindness, but the damage has been done by that time.

His brain is so fried by the 40+ scans that it cannot be rewired back to what it was, which means that his condition will deteriorate with time, and eventually, his brain will stop working, and this time, he will be dead for good. Nora and Nathan try to find a way out, but there is no cure for this. Even the AI guy, who has spent so much time on the streets of New York that he has become a miracle healer now, cannot fix Nathan’s brain. Eventually, the couple is forced to accept their reality. Nathan decides to spend his final moments with Nora, and she uses the VR to take him to the simulation of her wedding, which she’d played over and over again when she thought he was dead. This gives them a chance to get the wedding they never had, and Nathan even gives a ring to Nora.

They take things further by continuing the simulation to their honeymoon. Because Nathan wanted them to go to Montreal, Nora takes him there in the simulation. They talk about his desire to open a bakery, even though he doesn’t know how to bake. They walk around the city and wish each other the good mornings and good nights they never got to. In the end, Nathan tells Nora not to get stuck this time and move on with her life. He encourages her to go out into the world, find love again, and live the life that she deserves. He leaves her with these words and passes away, while Nora lies next to him to process the certainty of his death. He is gone for good this time. Or, so it seems.

What is in Nora’s Ring?

At the end of the episode, after the storm over Lakeview has passed and the world has been saved from being taken over by an evil AI, we get an update about where every character has ended up. It is clear that some time has passed since Nathan’s death, and we meet Nora at the cafe, which she visited with Nathan on their honeymoon trip simulation. It looks like she took his dying words to heart and is trying to live, instead of living in a simulation. While she is busy sketching the scene in front of her on her device, a man tries to talk to her, but she politely tells him that she is married. The man apologizes for not noticing the ring and leaves. However, it does make Nora pause.

She realises that she is still holding on to Nathan, and perhaps, it is time for her to move on. So, she shifts the ring that Nathan slipped into her left hand during their simulated wedding into her right hand. She goes back to her drawing, but this time, the ring requests to be paired with her device. She is surprised but allows the pairing, which is when she discovers that the ring contains the second scan of Nathan’s brain (the first scan happened in Season 1 when he died and went to Lakeview). This scan was done when Nathan was held captive by Horizen, and they started to do experiments on him. With each scan, his memory deteriorated, which made their projection fuzzy. However, Scan 2 contains all of his memories, right from his birth to his time in Lakeview to all the ups and downs he experienced with Nora by his side.

This scan is entirely untampered and contains the clearest version of his memories. When Nathan asks the kind Horizen employee to save his memories of Nora, the man does him one better and gives him all of his memories from Scan 2 saved in the ring device. It is this device that Nathan gives to Nora as a wedding ring, but he never gets the time to explain what it contains, mainly because he most likely forgets it due to the increasingly deteriorating condition of his brain. Now, however, Nora knows what the ring contains, and this opens up a possibility to bring back Nathan. Using the Scan 2, he can be recreated in Lakeview, just like it happened at the beginning of the show, using Scan 1. Because Lakeview is now basically a non-profit run by the good AI guys, Nora and Nathan will not have to worry about paying for the services or being exploited by Horizen in any way. In fact, if things go well, they can, in time, create a new body for Nathan and download him, giving a happy ending to his and Nora’s story.

How is the Evil AI Defeated? What Happens to Lakeview?

Horizen’s lust for exploitation has been evident since the first season, but they become particularly nefarious in their desire to make money from dead people in Lakeview in the fourth season. One of the things they do to make the place even more exploitative is by introducing another version of the AI guy. Previously, the AI guys were taught to be more human, which meant that they actually grew to care about their guests, exhibited compassion, and were ready to put the needs of others before the company’s desire to make money. However, the company did not like this, and to counter this empathy in the AI guy, they introduce a more unempathetic version. This one is characterised by black hair, and he is dedicated to the company’s cause. Over time, he starts to absorb other AI guys, and in the end, he is the only one left.

What’s worse is that all this absorption makes him stronger and he starts to entertain a form of self-control, which reaches its crescendo when it absorbs the last AI guy, who had been hiding himself in the form of a coconut, who became so hyper-aware after data exchange with Apple’s VR Resort Cove’s AI guy that it almost reached singularity. Now, the evil AI guy is armed with self-awareness, which leads him to throw the company’s needs and agenda out of the window. His next target is the real world, and he can easily come out of Lakeview via the streaming path, which is otherwise used to force penniless guests out of Lakeview.

To stop the evil AI guy from coming out of Lakeview and destroying the world as we know it, the streaming is stopped. However, this can only keep him out for so long. Truly destroying him needs someone more powerful than him, and there is only one AI guy who has achieved that level of power and experience. The problem is that he is not in Lakeview. This AI guy was let loose in the streets of New York in Season 3, and now he works as a miracle healer in Midtown. Nathan and Nora look for him to help with his brain problem, but the AI guy is not able to help them. However, he can help Aleesha and Ingrid. They take him to Horizen, where they start uploading him to Lakeview. This means that they will have to open the stream again, which means that the evil AI guy will have the power to come out into the world.

This issue is exacerbated by the fact that the good AI guy has gained so much experience in the real world that his file is of a humongous size and will need a few minutes to be uploaded. This gives the evil AI guy ample time to escape Lakeview. However, when Luke sees her walking towards the stream, he decides to intervene. He catches the evil AI guy off guard by using a trick that sends him back to the lobby of Lakeview. This buys them some time, but the evil AI guy returns pretty quickly, and this time, Luke does not have the element of surprise. The enemy is much stronger, and Luke is thrown into the stream, which means his file is deleted, and he is dead, for good. As soon as Luke dies, digital Nathan takes his place. He tries to stop the AI guy, but finds himself on the brink of death as well. Fortunately for him, the good AI guy is uploaded by this time, and he easily defeats the evil AI.

His experience in the streets of New York has given him the power that the evil AI could never get in Lakeview, and that allows the good AI to reprogram the evil AI and force out all the other AIs and guests that he had consumed to strengthen himself. Once everyone is out, the evil AI disintegrates and Lakeview reverts to the way it was. However, things are better this time, as the good AI guy is strong enough to sustain Lakeview on his own, and he and the other AIs don’t want Horizen’s intervention anymore. They make the place their own, and because humanity and empathy have been ingrained in them (all thanks to Aleesha), they want to keep Lakeview running for the guests, but as a non-profit. This means that no one has to pay for their uploads anymore, and they can continue to live in the afterlife, all thanks to the good AI guy and others like him.

Does Ingrid’s Nathan Download? What Happens to Nathan and Ingrid?

With Ingrid and digital Nathan getting married, the next step in their relationship is for him to get a physical body, get downloaded, and come back to the real world. However, things get so erratic in Lakeview that there comes a time when Nathan is almost erased from existence by the black-haired evil AI guy. However, thanks to the good AI guy, Nathan and Lakeview are saved. This close brush with death puts a lot of things in perspective for Nathan and whatever second thoughts he had about downloading are completely erased. Eventually, he gets a physical body, and he and Ingrid finally start their married life together. Soon after, Ingrid gets pregnant, and they seem poised to welcome their baby. But that’s not the only development in their lives.

The events in Lakeview have led them to write a book about their experiences, which has turned into a bestseller. Meanwhile, Ingrid has also started a business where she sells fat suits, but they are not fat and ugly like the ones she’d had to wear to interact with Nathan in Lakeview. She has turned them pretty and glamorous, and it turns out that she wasn’t the only one who had issues with the original suits. Business is booming for Ingrid, and all this success and popularity eventually bring them to a major talk show where they speak about where they currently stand in their lives. They also give an update on their friends, stating that Lakeview is now a non-profit run by good AIs, Ivan has married his vacuum cleaner, Aleesha has become a full-time spy for Oscar Mayer Intel (though the true nature of her job is not known to anyone), while Nora is also moving forward in her life. It is a happy ending for everyone.