The Bear Cooking Drama Review: This Daft Period Mystery Is Like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit

An intense debate lately spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the punishments they deserved for it. This at minimum allowed those females who had been hesitating over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is based on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of tension planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to verify.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which brutality, be it from nature or people, always looms at the periphery, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and revenge, rationality and faith, good and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that again the show’s credibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series is on Disney+ currently.