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An intense discussion lately went viral across online platforms, following a user posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up where some males came online to tell females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.

Portraying the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and evil intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.