The Consultant Season 1 Ending Explained- Who Or What is Regus Patoff, The Gold Skeleton, And What Could Happen In Season 2?

Fans of Apple TV+’s Servant already know the name Tony Basgallop. His creepy horror series has been keeping fans guessing for four years now. He has a proven track record of creating fantastic mystery box thrillers that revel in dark, weird spaces. His latest, this time on Amazon Prime, is The Consultant is a slippery one to define. It is many things at once. Based on the novel by Bentley Little, it is a dark workplace comedy, a biting social satire, and a supernatural drama. Starring Christoph Waltz, Brittany O’Grady, and Nat Wolff, it is the kind of series tailor-made for Reddit speculation.

Throughout eight thirty-minute episodes, we meet a freaky man named Regus Patoff and two enterprising young employees who act as our avatars in this strange world. When the boss of a gaming company is killed, everything changes. An extremely odd man declares himself the new boss and pits the employees against each other. The lucky ones are fired immediately or quit. The unlucky ones are now in the ultimate toxic workplace that might be more terrifying altogether. Usually, when we say work is Hell, we aren’t being literal. Here’s everything you need to know about the ending of The Consultant and who or what Regus Patoff is.

The ending of The Consultant explained

After the invitation for drinks results in a kidnapping, Craig begins looking into Mr. Patoff. He finds a man named Frank Florez, who was commissioned to make an entire skeleton for Mr. Patoff years ago. At the time, he didn’t know what he was making but eventually figured it out. He tells Craig to be very worried about this man and warns him to keep his fiance Patti far away from him. Just as he is leaving, several men in animal masks push their way in and rob Florez before he shoots them dead with a shotgun. Not coincidently, the men are wearing animal masks that match the same animals in Craig’s newest game.

After a vacant office starts a literal war, Elaine takes a sneakier route, talks a weaker employee out of his office, and declares herself a manager. She ingratiates herself with Patoff while Craig continues to investigate and worry. He even goes so far as to speak with a priest about an exorcism even though he is not a believer.

Meanwhile, the new game that Patoff tinkered with makes all of the players irate. Once they reach level 316, they get angry enough to hurt themselves. Elaine tries to warn him, but he says it is a maze and a game. He refuses to delay the launch. All of this has been planned from the beginning. Patoff drove the boy to shoot Sang. When he said, “The Devil made me do it.” he was speaking literally. Patoff seduces Patti, and Elaine makes plans to break an elephant out of the zoo to create buzz around his new game. Tragically the elephant dies in the stunt. As Craig spirals, shocked by his coworkers and company’s behavior, Patti works tirelessly, unbeknownst to Craig, in the record room.

In The Consultant Episode 8, the game is a huge success, and Elaine is his second in command. She betrays her ex-boyfriend, who stole the elephant. Mr. Patoff tells him he will take a human life when Elaine asks, and it will be on Patoff’s behalf. Patrice says she would never do that, but she has already shown the ability to exploit others.

Elaine and Craig are shocked that Sang’s mother is not dead and has Patti’s phone. Elaine goes to the record room to save Patti, and Craig confronts a very smug Mr. Patoff. After some heated words, Craig shatters the glass walkway with a sledgehammer, and Patoff falls through onto the cake. Mr. Patoff survived the fall minus a toe and walked away while Elaine, Patti, and Craig drove off. The police question Elaine about Patrice, and she denies everything.

In the closing moments as I Did It My Way plays, Elaine finds her name on the CEO’s door and a copy of the Records Room key. She was hand selected as the next person to run the company because she was just as cutthroat as Patoff was. Elaine was always corruptible, and Patoff saw something twisted in her. Craig dissects the toe and finds a gold bone. The boy who killed Sang in The Consultant Episode 1 beat the unbeatable level 316 of Mr. Sang’s Jungle Odyssey, and a golden skeleton popped out of an egg. Mr. Patoff has moved on to Pterodactyl, the company he visited several episodes before. Presumably, that is the next company he will infiltrate and retool.

What is Regus Patoff?

After Sang, the founder, CEO, and head game creator at Comp Ware was killed by a young boy in an office shooting, consultant Regus Patoff swoops in and begins making significant changes. He is an odd guy. He says inappropriate things, sniffs the employees, and has to be practically carried up the glass stairs by Craig(Wolff). Mr. Patoff(Waltz) arbitrarily fires people and slashes budgets on all major projects. He also installs a tiny locked room in the basement to type up countless reports on all his employees. He knows everything about the people who still work for Comp Ware. His files contain everything from their credit information to their childhood likes and dislikes. Nothing is off limits, even their friends and families. Worse still, he encourages his employees to fight with each other for offices and promotions.

The consultant, who has moved into Lee Sang’s office even before the blood has been cleaned off the walls, begins testing his employees. He tells them he needs to know who he can trust. Craig(Wolff), a slacker coder, goes for drinks with him and ends up kidnapping a young woman. Craig frees the woman after having a panic attack and is quickly ruled out as unreliable. Elaine(O’Grady), on the other hand, is opportunistic, sneaky, and self-serving. At first, she seems like the story’s protagonist, but by the end of The Consultant Season 1, she is clearly a kindred spirit.

Regus Patoff isn’t his real name. The jeweler tells Craig his name is a shortened form of Registered US Patent Office. It seems he has appeared out of thin air with no past or identity other than the one he invented. At the end of The Consultant, Craig sees Mr. Patoff’s toe and knows the jeweler had been telling the truth. Mr. Patoff’s entire skeleton is gold. He was hired by someone to consult. Mr. Patoff doesn’t know what they do at Comp Ware because it doesn’t matter. His job is profit and success.

Is he the Devil or an agent of the Devil? Is he a great human resources manager who gets results? It probably depends on your beliefs on Capitalism. As Elaine puts it, “He gets results.” Sure, he may have to crack a few eggs to do that, but if you believe the ends justify the means, then he is a hero. Each time someone makes a Faustian deal, they agree to die, give up control of their company, and gain immortality. That immortality comes in the way of a successful company legacy. We see him do this with Sang and the woman who runs Pterodactyl. He indulges everyone’s vices as long as they serve the company’s greater good. Why he never uses his office restroom is a mystery for Season 2.

What could happen in The Consultant Season 2?

Bentley Little has several books that dive into the horrors of corporate life and malevolent organizations. The Store, written in 1996, warns of the dangers of Big Box stores when a superstore is built and employs everyone in a small town. The company behind the store is sick in ways you must read to believe. If elements of both books were combined, it would give the series an entirely new angle to explore. Mr. Patoff could be just a cog in a vast, very evil wheel. The mysteries of his insatiable appetite without weight gain, bathroom habits, and peculiar gold wolverine bones demand explanations.

Why does Regus Patoff have a golden skeleton?

Gold is depicted many times in the Judeo-Christian bible. God paves the streets of Heaven in gold, and it is said his angels wore shields of gold to protect them. Satan wants desperately to be like God and understands that gold is an excellent way to corrupt humans. By making his skeleton gold, Mr. Petoff becomes an evil god of sorts. Since Mr. Flores never saw him while making the gold bones, we don’t know if he had a different form or existed in any real sense at all. The skeleton may have been a way to manifest the demon into a human form where he can now act as a consultant and infect those around him.

Love or hate him, Mr. Patoff made Sang’s company profitable and secured his legacy. He did what he was contracted to do. So you better be careful what you agree to. All episodes of The Consultant Season 1 are streaming on Amazon Prime right now.