A intense debate lately spread widely on social media, following someone asked a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.
Dramatising the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It traces the struggles of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Opposing Forces
Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are the many tonally jarring instances in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined proving that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the proof so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ currently.
