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A intense debate recently spread widely on social media, following someone asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, whether that of the wild or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the entire production fully becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence 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 and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears presented by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.