“The Consultant”: The end of the series explained

“The Consultant” is a thriller satire whose ending leaves a lot open and therefore needs to be explained. At the centre of the series is Christoph Walz as – yes, as what, actually?

“The Consultant”: Amazon series whose ending needs to be explained

“The Consultant” is a series on Amazon Prime Video that has been on the schedule since February 2023. The quirky thriller satire focuses on Christoph Waltz (including “James Bond Spectre”), who plays the manipulative management consultant Regus Patoff.

• He seems to come out of nowhere and appears one day at the gaming development studio CompWare. Its director Sang is in financial trouble. Patoff comes just in time and makes him an unbeatable offer: immortality.

• The price is high: for Sang and his company to become immortal, he himself must die. Sang goes along with the deal, only days after signing the contract with Patoff, the game developer is dead.

• Patoff runs the company from then on and lands a huge coup with the new game “Mr. Sang’s Jungle Odyssey”. His mission accomplished, he leaves the company at the end of the season and makes employee Elaine the new boss.

Android or devil? In any case, not of this world

At the end of the first season, the question remains: who is Patoff? What is clear is that he is not a Ukrainian management consultant from Crimea, which he claims to be.

• Regus Patoff is not from this world, he doesn’t even seem to be human. This is confirmed by his name, which is an abbreviation: Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. This stands for “Registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office” – a designation found on a wide variety of goods that have a registered U.S. patent.

• Another indication that Patoff is not human: his skeleton is made of gold. When employee Craig examines Patoff’s severed toe, he does not find bones there, but the precious metal. This also explains why the glass floor under Patoff is creaking and cracking. With a skeleton made of gold, the management consultant must weigh hundreds of kilograms.

• One theory is that Patoff is a kind of android, an artificial intelligence. This thesis is supported by Patoff’s always rational behaviour. It is refuted by his behaviour. He loves to eat sweets and prefers to write with pen and paper instead of using the latest technology.

• More likely is another theory: Patoff is the devil himself. He offers companies a kind of devil’s pact, plays colleagues Craig and Elaine off against each other and in the end the morally questionable Elaine gets the job as the new boss, while the always good-natured Craig is punished by his fiancée leaving him.