The Consultant Review

The Faustian bargain is a common plot point in film and television. Man or woman, disappointed or angry with their lot in life, makes a deal with the Devil to ensure success, power, romance – or some combination thereof – and then doesn’t want to give up their soul when the time comes for the Devil to collect. But much like fairy tales, we rarely get to see what happens to that intrepid deal-maker’s empire once they shuffle off this mortal coil. Well, The Consultant, a new limited series from Prime Video, attempts to answer that question by showing us the aftermath of Satan’s soul collection – wherein the titular Consultant turns out to be the Devil in disguise, trying to turn a company into a profitable element of his portfolio.

It’s an interesting concept in and of itself (the series is adapted from the novel of the same name by Bentley Little), allowing the series to link the often soul-sucking drudgery of office work with Satan literally having removed the soul from the boss days earlier. If only the execution was as sharp as the idea at the center of the show. Our Consultant, a Regus Patoff (the name is a hint that something is amiss – don’t worry if you don’t see it, the show will fill in the blanks for you rather quickly), is played with joyous aplomb by the great Christoph Waltz (seriously, Waltz is having an absolute blast here and every time he’s on screen the series soars – you actually start rooting for him to turn the company around and stay in the driver’s seat, which presents a bit of a problem), chewing the scenery, being ominously threatening, and still maintaining a smile on his face throughout. Our heroes – the worker bees who sense something is up and want to take down the Devil – are Nat Wolff’s Craig and Brittany O’Grady’s Elaine, a duo with a shared history but who also want to keep their video game company afloat. As things devolve at the office – and Craig’s fiancée goes missing (she’s played by Aimee Carrero, who is given almost nothing to do, which is a disappointment) – the pair try to solve the mystery of just who is Patoff, all while Patoff tries to gain the upper hand and break the pair apart.

And that’s where the series runs into its major issue – and where it gets completely off track. While the show trusts the audience to piece together the clues and determine that Patoff is the Devil and that he’s manipulating the various employees to serve under his new regime, it also wants us to accept that he truly does want to make the company financially viable. He wants the company to succeed, and he takes his role as the Consultant seriously. But he also creates complete chaos in his wake – making employees fight over office space, requiring crazy menial tasks such as getting him food in the middle of the night, expecting employees to be at his beck and call at all hours. It doesn’t make sense.

You could argue that Satan doesn’t need to make sense. That the show is about unmasking the evil that is pervasive within today’s office culture and that our heroes are necessary to that revelation – and if they succeed, it means that they can enact a better culture where the team can thrive. But the series doesn’t appear to be trying to get us to take that path either. Patoff starts tempting Elaine with small instances of institutional power within the company while trying to take Craig down a peg or ten. But we don’t really get a sense of why – outside of him trying to stop the pair from working together to oust him. The writing doesn’t lay out just why Patoff’s changes are bad (he does some awful things and creates some bad things . . . but again, we don’t know why he’s doing this other than he’s Satan). It also doesn’t get into why it’s bad for Elaine to try to take initiative at times – even if it means working with Patoff toward streamlining the company. Again, she teeters into some morally gray areas, but she certainly isn’t condoning some of the more fully bad actions of Patoff throughout the series.

I often laud a series for not spoon feeding its audience and letting us work out the moral of the story or the reasoning behind a character’s actions, but I wish The Consultant had opted to be a tad more explanatory in its storytelling. Lay out a bit about why Elaine was more easily wooed by Patoff than Craig. Explain a bit more about just what Carrero’s character Patti was up to – and why Patoff was interested in getting his claws into her. Much of the story arc simply unfurled without any real rhyme or reason, turning the viewing experience into a giant shoulder shrug. Why did Patoff do that? Because he did. Why did Elaine do that? Because she did. Why did Craig go there or say that? Because he did.

There’s a reason Faustian bargain stories have existed for centuries – they’re incredibly interesting. After all, what’s a better get out of jail free card than “The Devil made me do it?” The Consultant has a fun twist on that tried and true story trope, but it fails in its execution. More direction, better character development, and a more interesting ending would have really sold this tale. But hey, at least Christoph Waltz is having a hell of a time.

The Consultant premieres on Prime Video on February 24. All eight episodes were provided for review.