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A intense debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following a user asked a query for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to tell females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.

The Antagonists

Soon collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance 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

With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip 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 slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and prejudice and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production truly coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – 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 confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.