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An heated debate recently went viral on social media, following someone posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were to select the animal and went on to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which 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 Opposing Forces

Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of conflict sown, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.