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A intense debate lately went viral across online platforms, after a user asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which some males came online to inform females how stupid they were to select the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.

Portraying the Scenario

To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part series is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.

The Antagonists

Soon collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a mixture 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 newest conclusion and extracting a corpse from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are determined proving that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.