Upload (2020) s02e07 – Download

Either “Upload” decided to be just another 2022 show and play chicken with its renewal post-reduced Covid-19 lockdown season, or they ran out of time to shoot the whole season. As a result, this episode feels like a great mid-season breakpoint, not a season finale. It’s got three massive cliffhangers, one semi-resolution to an outstanding arc, one big whiff instead of a resolution, and one natural character development moment.

It’s a slightly longer episode than usual—closer to forty minutes than thirty—because there’s just so much to do, starting with Robbie Amell and Andy Allo coming up with a plan to foil the bad guys’ plan. That plan involves shifting the voting demographics in swing states, which is entirely shoehorned into the show; it’s a contrived crisis, starting last episode.

Anyway.

They need to get Amell’s retina scan to save the United States, basically. Except Amell’s dead and his avatar in the digital afterlife uses templates when you zoom into the eyes close enough. Though there’s a great scene with Allo gazing into Amell’s eyes, and who cares if the plot’s contrived.

Luckily, as the audience found out at the very end of the previous episode, Allegra Edwards has cloned Amell so she can reinsert his personality into the brain. Of course, Amell knows nothing about it, but Edwards is going to reward him with the information once he signs on the dotted line for having a creepy virtual baby with her.

Except, of course, the process for reinserting personalities into clones results in the subject’s head exploding. This subplot also seems a little rushed, like if they’d had a couple more episodes to the season, it wouldn’t feel so abrupt. They’ve been testing the procedure on pigeons, which leads to some funny (but, you know, not nice to pigeon) scenes.

But in addition to Edwards’s cooperation, they’re also going to need help from the Luds. Allo has to convince the Christian fundamentalist terrorist pastor Peter Bryant, and she’s not getting much help from now ex-boyfriend Paulo Costanzo. But she does get an unlikely supporter in fellow double agent Josh Banday, who thinks Allo’s really cool, actually.

There’s also some danger for Amell’s mom, Jessica Tuck, who’s going to have herself uploaded into the forthcoming freeware afterlife so she can hang out with him. Also, because she’s so poor, it makes more sense to stop existing. Amell doesn’t know anything about it, but it’s the first life-or-death stake in the episode. It’s not the last, which is kind of a big swing for a sitcom, only they did the same thing last season and then spent most of this one ignoring that shift.

The only people with regular arcs are Zainab Johnson and Kevin Bigley. Johnson’s boss, Andrea Rosen, wants to promote her one more time, which means bigger bucks and a much better living situation. It also means Johnson will have to commit to the very likely (but still nebulously) evil company.

And then Bigley’s just excited for Edwards to ruin things with Amell so they can bro out.

It’s a tense, dramatic, occasionally wonderful season finale. With three big cliffhangers and no resolutions if they don’t get a renewal.

There are some great scenes for Allo and Amell, some funny ones for Costanzo, and a lackluster finish for Edwards, who deserved more after the season she’s had.

Even with the limited opportunity for Allo and Amell charm this season, the actors still manage to deliver and up the charm. They’re delightful together. Also, “Upload”’s got a solid supporting cast who deserves to finish some character arcs.

I really hope Amazon renews it.

Upload (2020) s02e02 – Dinner Party

Both Robbie Amell and Andy Allo spend this episode getting used to their new normals (without each other), with Allo having a much better time of it. She gets to hang out with new beau Paulo Costanzo, which means a bunch of flirting, but also finding out some of the Luds anti-digital afterlife plans.

Amell’s just got to suffer through fiancée Allegra Edwards throwing a dinner party; the audience now knows Edwards is lying to him about being dead. She’s just in a VR suit in her bathtub 24/7. She invites the worst people she can find around the place, letting Amell invite his poor friend Phoebe Miu for some contrast. Kevin Bigley’s there too, but he’d either be an Amell invite or as Vic Michaelis’s plus one. Michaelis is Edwards’s grandma, who spends her digital afterlife drunk and knocking boots with Bigley.

Michaelis also gets a conversation with fellow rich guest William B. Davis (as a Koch brother analog) about how much fun it is to be racist and how women getting the vote caused the Great Depression. Davis has some unlikely, seemingly empathetic ideas about the poors receiving a digital afterlife, too, surprising Amell and horrifying Edwards. Bigley gets it in his head there’s something to Davis’s interest concerning the big conspiracy against Amell (Amell having programmed a free digital afterlife and apparently murdered for it), but Amell’s too busy with the dinner party. Specifically the help.

In addition to Allo’s adventures with the Luds, the episode’s also got Zainab Johnson and her new sidekick, Mackenzie Cardwell, trying to keep up with Edwards’s demands for the dinner party. Edwards is just too much of a Karen for the AI to keep up with her; there are some great scenes for Owen Daniels, who plays all the in-world AI characters. When Cardwell enters the digital afterlife, she uses Allo’s existing avatar, sending Amell into conniptions.

While there are some funny faux pas moments for Amell and Cardwell Allo, it’s also some jarringly unlikable Amell for a while. Once he gets the identities sorted out, he gets really short–a complete reverse from when he doesn’t know and is falling over himself to pay attention to Cardwell Allo in front of Edwards. Although Amell told Edwards he’d had a digital afterlife fling last episode, it’s unclear if she knows it’s Allo.

Anyway.

They use Amell’s brief foray into unlikable as a character development arc, as well as a way to further establish Cardwell. Johnson’s got a great line about Amell being a “human bowl of oatmeal” who drives the other girls wild.

Meanwhile, the real Allo ends the episode getting even more involved with the Luds, specifically their plans for hacking the digital afterlife and leveraging her experience (and job) to do it.

Upload (2020) s02e01 – Welcome Back, Mr. Brown

“Upload” starts its second season making some immediate changes from the previous season cliffhanger. One’s a reveal at the end of the episode and a good twist. The other’s Andy Allo’s not great real-life love interest Matt Ward getting axed in the first scene. They’re on the run in upstate New York, and Allo ditches him at a bed and breakfast to run off with dad Chris Williams to the off-griders.

With lead Robbie Amell still stuck in the reduced data area of the digital afterlife, Allo’s adventures with the “Luds” (as in Luddites) takes up the first half of the episode. Despite being a tech junkie in her regular life, Allo takes to the Lud colony, where she’s soon teaching the orientation classes and flirting with community leader Paulo Costanzo.

Besides growing their own vegetables and not having any wifi, the Luds also have a fundamentalist Christian terrorist thing going on under the leadership of pastor Peter Bryant. Allo and Costanzo bond over being charming, attractive, and not extreme like Bryant. And gardening.

Meanwhile, back at Allo’s job, her absence has coworker and bestie Zainab Johnson getting a lot more responsibility and a promotion. She and boss Andrea Rosen get to be better pals with Allo gone too; they’ve got to suffer a particularly obnoxious new upload (a dead person’s consciousness uploaded into a virtual afterlife paradise)—Amell’s fiancée Allegra Edwards.

Edwards waits a few weeks to wake Amell up from his data cap, wanting to make changes to his existing apartment. Amell’s immediately worried about Allo, who was almost killed in the previous season’s finale because she and Amell found out he’d been murdered (by Edwards’s dad), and runs off to check up on her.

Except she’s entirely off-line, so he can’t find any information or get in touch. All his calls go to voicemail, including the one where he finally tells her he loves her too.

There’s some bro buffoonery with Amell’s neighbor and dead bestie Kevin Bigley (who’s semi-dating, i.e., getting horizontal, with Edwards’s dead grandma, Vic Michaelis, which continues to be hilarious). And Mackenzie Cardwell joins the cast as the temp Johnson hires to cover for missing Allo.

There’s also cybercrimes detective Hiro Kanagawa, who seems like he’s going to have something to do with the season—the whole Amell hacking the real world to save Allo last season.

It’s an okay season starter; Allo’s extremely likable, Johnson’s excellent, and Bigley’s broadly funny. Edwards is very intense as the de facto villain. Amell’s kind of got nothing to do except cyberstalk, which is a bummer. Allo’s his only human connection on the show, and they’re not talking.