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A intense discussion recently spread widely on social media, after someone posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to tell women how foolish they were to select the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Soon in cahoots against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which brutality, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, good and evil escalate, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, exist numerous stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series is on Disney+ now.