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An intense discussion recently spread widely on social media, after a user posed a query to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the animal and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered 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 within Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon collaborating opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods spread, 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 conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and pulling a corpse from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series is on Disney+ currently.