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A intense debate recently went viral across online platforms, following a user posed the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce 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 tell females how stupid they were for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical stance on alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly 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 against the Kengis powers that be.

The Antagonists

Soon collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.