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An intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, following someone asked a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males came online to inform women how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.

Portraying the Scenario

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.