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An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, following someone posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, none of the locals particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son 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 lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension planted, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward set out to verify.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, where violence, be it from the wild or people, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are determined proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.