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A intense debate recently went viral on social media, after a user asked a query to women: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how foolish they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part series is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods circulate, 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 bleakness that allows distrust and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.