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A heated discussion recently went viral on social media, following someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform females how foolish they had been to select the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Portraying the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality 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 factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of conflict planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.