“Red Widow” is a wannabe “Breaking Bad”

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 16:16:00 +0000

ABC's “Red Widow,” based on a Dutch series and adapted by Melissa Rosenberg, the author of the “Twilight” screenplays, sounds like a TV show with potential. It stars Radha Mitchell (Woody Allen’s “Melinda & Melinda") as Marta Walraven, a mother of three, a daughter of the Russian mob, and the wife of a long-haired, surfer-spirited dude named Evan (“Hell on Wheels'” Anson Mount, looking nearly as rugged) who runs a very mellow marijuana importing business. Well, it’s mellow until his ambitious business partner and Marta’s shady brother Irwin gets him into the coke business. Before the first hour of Sunday’s two-hour premiere is through, Evan has been shot dead in the driveway of his home and Marta is compelled by the very powerful and dangerous underworld boss Schiller (“ER’s” Goran Visnjic) to pay off Evan’s debt by continuing his business. In other words, “Red Widow” looks to be a corruption tale along the lines of “Breaking Bad,” but with a woman doing the breaking.

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“Red Widow” is a wannabe “Breaking Bad”