A heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following a user asked a query for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. The six-part series is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots against him are the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi embark to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is intent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ currently.
