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An intense debate recently spread widely on social media, after someone posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to tell women how foolish they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour 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 the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.