Ellen Gray: 'Red Widow' puts female spin on 'Breaking Bad' formula

Radha Mitchell plays Marta Walraven in "Red Widowm,"which premieres Sunday night on ABC.
Posted: March 01, 2013

RED WIDOW. 9 p.m. Sunday, 6 ABC. Moves to 10 p.m. Sundays on March 10.

IF THIS COUNTRY ever legalizes drugs, TV writers will be among the first to take a hit.

(No, not that kind.)

When the American dream goes south for their middle-class characters, drug-dealing is less likely to be the fix of choice, since taxed and licensed transactions just don't pack the dramatic punch required by shows such as "Breaking Bad," or even "Weeds."

Maybe we'll see more bank robberies?

Fortunately for ABC's "Red Widow," which premieres with a two-hour episode Sunday, drug trafficking is still a dirty, dangerous business that stay-at-home moms in tiny northern California suburbs aren't supposed to mess with.

Not that Marta Walraven (Radha Mitchell) is just any stay-at-home mom.

Born into a colorful family of Russian mobsters, she's long pretended to herself that she's raising her three children outside that life and that her husband, Evan (Anson Mount), who works with her brother (Wil Traval), is just a garden-variety pot dealer, not a major drug trafficker - their huge and light-filled home outside San Francisco notwithstanding.

The fantasy's already crumbling when Evan is gunned down in the family's driveway, leaving Marta to sort out a dangerous mess that could get her and the rest of her family killed.

Complicating her problems: an FBI agent (Clifton Collins Jr.) who'd also like her to finish her husband's unfinished business - by turning state's evidence and possibly taking down her father (Rade Serbedzija).

Oh, and then there are her kids (Sterling Beaumon, Erin Moriarty and Jakob Salvati), who have a few issues, too.

What's a mother to do?

Marta's particular choice brings her into the world of Nicholae Schiller ("ER's" Goran Visnjic), a guy so bad even Marta's mob-boss father won't mess with him.

We know he's bad because he dresses impeccably, laughs inappropriately and refuses to guarantee the safety of anyone in Marta's world until she performs a task for which only he believes she's qualified.

Which may actually make him an excellent judge of character.

In the light of Monday morning, a lot of what goes on in "Red Widow" is probably going to seem pretty silly.

But shows like this are all about the chemistry, and the chemistry between Mitchell and Visnjic is everything you'd want in an essentially unequal relationship between a recent widow and the megalomaniacal drug dealer who can end her life at any moment.

If you've been spending your Sundays with ABC's "Revenge" - which returns next week to become a more appropriate lead-in than "Once Upon a Time" - you might enjoy meeting this "Widow."

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