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A intense discussion recently spread widely on social media, after a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males came online to inform women how foolish they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors presented by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.