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A intense discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, after someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part series is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version 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 a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.