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A intense debate recently went viral across online platforms, after someone asked a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the entire production fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are determined proving that the maid was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.