To Cook a Bear Analysis: This Daft Historical Crime Drama Is Like A Bear-Focused Detective Series

A intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, following a user posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and proceeded 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.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode series is adapted from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly collaborating against him include the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, exist the many tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more 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, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series is on Disney+ now.