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A heated debate recently went viral across online platforms, following someone posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how foolish they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). 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 settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from which hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are the many tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors presented by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series is on Disney+ now.