The Consultant season 1 episode 2 recap: Mama

On the Amazon original series, The Consultant, starring Academy-award Christoph Waltz, the mother of tragically shot CEO Sang Woo arrives at CompWare, allegedly to dismember the young gaming guru’s legacy. Meantime, Elaine and Craig try to make headway into the sinister Regus’s background and motives.

Elaine gets a call from Regus at 3AM. He’s asking her to come in earlier, meaning immediately.

Elaine begs off but Regus calls her again. This time she heads out.

On the drive to the office, Elaine records a safety message. In case anything happens to her, she’s got a video diary of why she’s going to CompWare at an ungodly hour.

Once there, Regus tells her about her personnel file, living wages, and living conditions. Elaine is perplexed at the detail.

He tells her they have a records room and that all the companies he’s consulted for, has such a records room. Dana, Sang’s assistant, comes in with a box of assorted churros.

Regus tells Elaine about Sang’s mother, Ahn Si-Woo, coming to LA for Sang’s last wishes and estate. All this while the guy is munching on churros.

The Consultant season 1 episode 2 recap: Momma Sang is in the building

In the morning, Craig comes in and finds that Regus has thrown out all their products in the pipeline. The entire development slate has been nuked.

He’s about to charge into Regus’s office but Elaine heads him off. Momma Sang is on the way and she just might blow the new consultant right out the door.

Mama Sang arrives and Regus makes all the proper obeisance gestures and words. He even knows some Korean.

Craig muses what would make their second-floor lobby glass crack. One of the coders opines that the glass is so strong, an elephant could screw a rhino on it, and it would hold.

Though it was Elaine that instructed Dana to book a room at a nearby hotel for Mama Sang, it’s Regus that escorts her there to be checked in. Or so he says.

While he’s gone, Elaine sneaks into Regus’s office and tries to take a look at her file. But it’s not there.

When she asks Ian, he’s confused about this alleged “records room.” Though he does remember they have a storeroom where they keep the servers.

The Consultant season 1 episode 2 recap: Behold the mystery door

Among the servers, Elaine does find a locked door. Meantime, Craig saves footage of Sang fellating Regus on a USB drive.

Then he makes Elaine promise to give it to Sang’s mother. At the Pernith, the hotel reception informs Elaine that nobody’s checked in under CompWare.

So where is Mama Sang? Craig is working late, still waiting for Patti, his fiancée, to pick him up.

He’s coding some weird game involving weights of different animals on glass, when Regus comes in. Elaine calls him to tell him about Mama Sang’s disappearance.

The Consultant season 1 episode 2 recap: Elephants, rhinos, and gorillas

Craig tells her that Regus is alone. When Elaine calls Regus to inquire about sending a fruit platter to Mama Sang, he waves it off and just mentions a location where paddle boat swans seemed funny to him.

At the office, Regus catches Craig still working and asks him about his game involving elephants, rhinos, and gorillas. Craig explains it and he’s excited to play.

But Craig says it’s not ready and that he should ask Elaine about how it can be put in development. Elaine finally finds the area where there are swan paddle boats and starts asking random people if they’d seen a woman of Mama Sang’s description.

Nothing. When Craig calls her to tell her about how Regus wants to make the game and that the highway to the Valley (where she lives) is closed, she almost has a breakdown.

To compensate, she takes the hotel suite that was meant for Sang Woo’s mom and pampers herself with a bubble bath and room service. Back at CompWare, Regus unlocks the records room with a key.

The Consultant season 1 episode 2 recap: Review

There’s a central metaphor here and it really doesn’t involve the arrival of Sang’s mom. While the first episode had a cohesive take on the tragedy of a shot CEO and a mystery man coming in to upend the whole corpo structure, this one is just confusing.

It puts in myriad elements that seem to lead to narrative dead ends. Whether it’s the mysteriously locked records room or the animal vs glass game that Craig is working on, either are more interesting to pursue rather than the entrance and disappearance of Mama Sang.

It’s like the writing was still getting workshopped, while they shot this episode. To be honest, you could kick out Mrs. Sang and still have a pretty hefty and entertaining episode.

Hopefully the next episode can be more focused and not end with too many head-scratching plot turns.

You can stream the first season of The Consultant on Amazon Prime Video.