An intense debate lately went viral on social media, following someone asked a query for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up where some males came online to tell females how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part series is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast roaming the woods circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life led by the residents, where violence, whether that of nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and religion, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, exist the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The village elite are determined demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
