An intense discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed a query for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.
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 (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and vengeance, rationality and religion, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing allures and terrors offered by science and religion. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
