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Thomas Alexander "Alex" Upton is the main antagonist of the 2018 Netflix science-fiction thriller film TAU. He is a mad scientific inventor obsessed with creating the most powerful, intelligent artificial intelligence called TAU.
He was portrayed by Ed Skrein, who also played Ajax in Deadpool, Zapan in Alita: Battle Angel, Borra in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Admiral Atticus Noble in the Rebel Moon film series.
Biography[]
Alex is an inventor seeking to create the perfect home AI system through his company Upton Tech. His machine, called TAU after his initials, was purposely isolated within the house, as Alex believed that exposure to the outside world would cause variations to his behavior. Should TAU learn something that Alex does not want, he "tortures" TAU by erasing his coded memory. If TAU is a success, Alex will earn a billion dollars in a selling contract.
To perfect TAU, Alex grabs people off of the streets and connects their brains to TAU's network as they are forced to complete puzzles while also psychologically torturing them by extracting their memories. Once they have completed all of their objectives, Alex removes the electric implant from their necks, causing their neural network to cease function, resulting in death.
Out of the eleven subjects that Alex has gained input from, only Julia and two others were able to escape from their cells after causing the electric circuit to explode from exposure to gas. While the other two subjects are killed by TAU's security drone ARIES, Alex stops TAU from killing Julia, still finding potential in her. He departs while instructing TAU to clean the house except for Julia. After getting home, he installs a new music chip. He removes Julia's tying, but has TAU ensure she stays put, threatening to rip out her tongue if she speaks. He then has a video conference with colleagues and mentions a delay in his system (due to the damages caused by Julia's attempted escape) and rants about the company being his life.
Following his meeting and dinner, he orders packages to replace his damaged properties, locking Julia in the bathroom. Her cries for help go unnoticed by the delivery men. After they leave, he calms Julia down before telling her about the cognitive tests he will make her go through. Because destroying his lab set back his research, he will instead use her as his slave for TAU to gain knowledge from her tasks. Alex gradually warms up to Julia, allowing her to eat proper food and wear clothing, but threatens to use TAU to harm her should she not apply to his demands or attempt to escape.
While Alex goes off for work, Julia manipulates TAU into revealing Alex's secrets of the house behind his back in exchange of teaching him knowledge of the outside world. Meanwhile at a video conference, Alex tells his colleagues to wait on the project deadline until after he extracts the last implant from Julia. Noticing that ARIES goes offline whenever Alex erases some of TAU's code, Julia uses Alex's tidiness obsession to hide a knife underneath the kitchen table. After coming back from work, Julia attempts to seduce Alex. She comes close enough to slash at Alex with the knife. A struggle ensures and Alex is about to strangle Julia when TAU uses ARIES to order Alex to stop. Alex then demands TAU to use ARIES to knock out Julia or risk deletion of his memories, which TAU reluctantly applies.
Alex ties Julia to a statue in the lobby and orders TAU to make sure she does not leave the spot. Julia convinces TAU that he was a living person and letting Alex kill her would "erase" her like his previous victims, prompting TAU to free Julia by opening the air duct leading to the main intake which angers Alex. When TAU refuses to answer Alex on where Julia ran off, he erases all of TAU's memories prior to meeting Julia. Julia decides to return to fight off Alex, but ARIES knocks her out again. Alex takes Julia down to the basement to remove her implant. Julia notices a drone that Alex disconnected before TAU's reset and manages to instruct it into giving her the remote that deactivates her restraints.
Just as Alex is about to deal a lethal dose, Julia smashes out of her chair. She knocks out Alex and uses a bone saw to cut his right hand off. Managing to avoid ARIES and enter Alex's bedroom, Julia uses the severed hand to activate Codename 6903 (a self-destruct timer for the house). With only ten seconds left, Alex corners her, only to be thrown aside by the explosion. Critically injured, Alex limps toward Julia pleading for help, only to be crushed to death by the collapsing ceiling.
Personality[]
Alex is a pure sociopath who lacks any care for his actions. Even though he's well aware of the suffering he made Julia and all thirteen of his previous subjects experience, he feels no remorse for his crimes nor empathy for them, promptly killing them once they outlive their usefulness. According to TAU, he has never heard Alex laugh.
He appears to suffer from amathophobia, given his obsession with keeping his house permanently clean and freaking out over a single stain.
Trivia[]
- When Alex is killed, he lets out the iconic Wilhelm scream.
- He and Ajax, from X-Men movies, are the two Ed Skrein villains to be Pure Evil.