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An heated debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to tell women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers 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 taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly 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 adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series streams on Disney+ now.