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An intense discussion lately spread widely across online platforms, following a user asked the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell females how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Scenario

To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.