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An intense debate recently went viral on social media, following someone posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.