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A intense debate recently went viral across online platforms, following a user posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to inform women how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.