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A heated debate recently spread widely on social media, after a user posed a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were to select the animal and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the villagers, where violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and faith, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on proving that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears presented by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.