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An heated debate recently spread widely on social media, following a user posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.