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A intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, after someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part drama is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Soon collaborating against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling 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 protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.