Upload—Season 1, Episode 8 (Shopping Other Digital After-Lives)
The episode kicks off with one of Nathan’s damaged memories being played in the memory parlour, showing him and Jamie fighting about their software, with Batia remarking she has never seen anything like it before. Batia tells him that enhancing stressful memories isn’t recommended, instead suggesting he enhance a happy memory.
He chooses a memory where he and Nora were hanging out by the lake and Nora tells him that he can walk on water if he wanted to, when he tries, he discovers that she was pranking him, but he manages to get payback when he asks for her help and pulls her into the lake. When the memory is playing he refers to her by name and she mentions her office, which leads to Lucy suspending Nora for fraternizing with Nathan and access to her avatar is removed.
We then go to Nathan and Luke walking through Lakeview, with romantic pop-up ads annoying Nathan. Luke questions him about it and on his relationship with Ingrid, where Nathan informs him that his relationship with her is worse than ever. Nathan calls for Nora and her avatar appears, however it’s under Lucy’s control. Nathan admits his feelings for Nora to her avatar to Lucy’s shock, but she keeps listening. Lucy bluntly turns him down, brushing it off as an Upload being attracted to their angel and leaves.
After this interaction, Nathan tells Viv he wants to check out other afterlives, while Nora asks her friend, Yang, who works at AT&T&T to look into Josh Pitzer’s phone records. Yang tells her that Jamie texted Nathan’s Upload ID to an unknown number. Meanwhile Nathan leaves Lakeview via a tube, which Aleesha finds out about when she sees the alert on Nora’s computer. Viv takes the hard drive from a Horizen store. Aleesha calls Nora to let her know and she decides to fly to LA to find out what’s going on.
Viv goes to a travel agent who uses questionable technology to show her and Nathan the variety of afterlives available within her price range. While she is there, Nora goes to see Ingrid and tells her about Nathan’s departure from Lakeview. Ingrid is unaware of it and realises Viv has him. Ingrid calls Viv and they argue about her going “Heaven shopping” without telling her. While Ingrid is on the phone, Nora looks around Ingrid’s apartment and finds a box of Nathan’s stuff and looks through it. She finds a shirt of his and smells it. When she hears Ingrid finish her call, she quickly puts everything back in the box and they leave to go to the travel agency.
While they are travelling to the agency, Ingrid asks Nora why she came all this way for an exit interview. Nora explains it by saying Horizen cares about customer service. They also discover they have a common interest in their enjoyment of the Botox Babies TV show. Just before they walk into the agency, Nora spots a suspicious looking man watching them. When Ingrid questions him on his choice to leave Lakeview, she offers to pay more money for him to enjoy himself and tells him to stay at Lakeview as she’ll be uploaded there. When he sees Nora, he decides to stay.
When the travel agent gives Nathan’s hard drive back to Ingrid, her and Viv fight over taking him back to Lakeview. Nora decides to intervene and gives him to Ingrid as the Horizen account holder. As they are leaving, the suspicious looking man snatches what appears to be Nathan’s hard drive out of Ingrid’s hand and throws it into a fountain. However Nora quietly tells Viv she gave Ingrid one of the travel agent’s broken drives and she has Nathan’s hard drive in her bag.
Nathan returns to Lakeview to find Luke waiting for him and he gives him a digital souvenir he got from the travel agency. When he goes to the pier Nora appears and hugs him, she also tells him that someone else knew he was being ejected and asks him who it could possibly be, but he doesn’t know. He also tells her about his interaction with her avatar yesterday and she realises Lucy took control of her avatar. She reveals that her suspension was lifted as Ingrid gave Nora a good review to Lucy’s boss. Nora walks on water and encourages Nathan to give it another try, only to prank him again.
Overall this was an interesting (but not the best) episode as Nathan finally admitted his feelings for Nora (even though Lucy was in control of her avatar at the time) and we got to see other digital afterlives. We were also given another puzzle piece when a mysterious person tried to destroy Nathan’s hard drive, although we didn’t find out who he was.
Stray Observations:
-The pop-up ad designed for Luke reads: “You’ll never believe these 10 signs you’re invading someone’s personal space. Number four will freak you out, Luke!”
-There is an Economy Minus class on planes.
-Apparently planes are double decker in the future.
-The flight attendant makes the following announcement on Nora’s flight: “Welcome to Frontier-Spirit-United. Thanks for trusting us again, now that we’re safely airborne, feel free to adjust your seats to maximise your comfort and convenience.”
-There are not a lot of self-driving cars in New York.
-Apparently there is a Disney afterlife called Disney Eternity.
Loveday Writing 