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An heated discussion recently spread widely on social media, after someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which some males took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating opposing him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward set out to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, good and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman 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 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, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series is on Disney+ currently.