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A heated debate recently went viral on social media, following a user posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how stupid they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.