‘Upload’: Greg Daniels Previews Nathan & Nora’s Complicated Season 3 Romance

(Credit: Prime Video)

What complications do two Nathans bring?

Greg Daniels: That sets up this whole delightful triangle where there’s actually one Nathan in real life and another one whose memories stop a few months earlier in the digital world and they stopped just before the moment in Season 2 where he is reunited with Nora. So from Ingrid’s (Allegra Edwards) perspective, she’s got a clean slate and a fresh start with him.

It’s basically setting up a lot of interesting things for Ingrid that you don’t normally get, which is to have a second chance with this guy if he didn’t see all of the fighting and the bad behavior and the lying that happened. Maybe she can go and set the clock back. She knows about it, but he doesn’t. And then the idea that there’s two of the same guy and eventually they’re going to run into each. And from Nora’s standpoint, it’s like, “Well wait a minute now, I have two boyfriends, one of them who I went through the last six months with and a sort of fresher one from the past.” So it’s one of the most fun parts about doing science fiction is the ability to have these premises that people haven’t really explored before but still ground them in the reality of your character’s emotional experience.

Nora’s old colleague and friend Aleesha (Zainab Johnson) was promoted at the end of Season 2. How is her new role impacting Lakeview and everyone else?

Yes, the company is a big tech company and kind of not about morality too much Aleesha is rising in the ranks, and she’s having some troubles with her friendship with Nora. And one of the things that she’s been tasked to do is to train the AI because they’ve outgrown the coding. It’s a bit of a statement about machine learning and the value systems that are being absorbed by these AI, and it’s Aleesha’s job to take these adolescent AI and give them a value system because it’s not coming from the company. It’s really interesting to watch, and there are a lot of fun comments and stories there. [Zainab]’s a great actor, as is our AI guy (Owen Daniels), and it’s really fun to see them interact.

Viewers got a taste of some tension between Nathan and Nora. Will there be any happier times ahead for the pair now that they’re together in the real world?

So there’s a real high moment at the end of Season 2 in the sense that finally they are actually physically together, and part of the beginning of Season 3 is just, well, what does that actually mean? It’s like if you’ve had a long-distance romance with someone and you’re living together for the first time — it’s a little different. And so we’re exploring some of those smaller, more real relationship things in the beginning. Then there’s this great opportunity with the second Nathan; I thought a good tagline would be, Nathan and Nora, the ultimate romantic triangle because now there’s two of ’em.

So that becomes quite an interesting wrinkle, and a lot of it is just trying to do something fresh every episode, something with some interest and stakes and romantic moments, and it’s just such a pleasure to be storytelling in this world with these characters and this cast. [Third seasons] are always my favorite anyway. It’s like a show really gets going in Season 3. And we are spacing it out. We’re doing two episodes a week. So I’m hoping that those little gaps will allow the fans to really wonder and yet be satisfied within a few days as opposed to these long gaps between seasons.

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