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

An intense debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed the question for females: which would you prefer find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how foolish they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for that choice. This at least allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals particularly warm to his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production fully becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are determined proving that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors offered by rational thought and belief. In its low points, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series streams on Disney+ currently.