What do you think of the promotional posters?
Pretty fun/nostalgic for mob stories of yesteryear!
Red Widow
What a premiere! This doesn’t mean it’s a keeper, but it was pretty darn good. I think a lot of new shows might fare better if they did a two-hour premiere. When it comes to a story like this that has so many details, so many characters and so much going on, airing a one-hour pilot (or for sitcoms, a half hour!) isn’t always enough for the viewer to understand what’s going on. Compared to Mob Doctor, this was a major step up.
First off, I was a little disappointed that Goran Visnjic is playing the bad guy, again. I know he does it well (and he looks incredible doing it), but I really love seeing him play the good guy.
Radha Mitchell plays Marta Walraven, a newly widowed woman who has to take over her husband’s “import” business (for import: read drug smuggling). Her husband is alive at the beginning, and we don’t really find out what’s going on or what he’s into until later. It’s a pretty horrific scene when he dies–he’s shot in their driveway at home by a drive-by motorcyclist, with their youngest child just a few feet away. Marta hears the shots and runs out to find out what happened, only to watch her husband bleed to death on the pavement, as her son stands by helpless to watch.
Marta with Boris, her youngest
Her family is somehow connected to the Russian mob–her father in particular–and she has to go to them for help as she learns more about what her husband was into. She starts out just trying to protect her children, but she discovers that her husband was indebted to a man, another mobster/gangster type of person, named Schiller (Visnjic) and now she has to repay that debt.
To complicate things further, Marta discovers that her husband was going to rat out her entire family to the FBI in order to get them into witness protection. As much as she wanted him to start over in a more legitimate lifestyle, she is conflicted that it would have come at the expense of the rest of her family. Mob or not, they’re still the people who raised her and whom she grew up with.
Goran Visnjic as Schiller, aka the Villain
The story centers on her getting accustomed to the life that she had never been involved in, and becoming a shrewd “business” woman in her own right. I really love the role that her oldest son has–teetering on the edge of becoming a criminal like the rest of his family, or trying to stay on the straight and narrow. He’s a great character, very supportive and protective of his mother and his brother and sister, and I really like the actor who plays him (Sterling Beaumon–you may recognize him from Lost and a bunch of other TV stuff, but this is his first “regular” role.). He really does it well.
Overall, I liked it. I’m much more reassured in Radha Mitchell’s role and I think she actually does very well. It’s sort of like Catherine Zeta-Jones’s role in Traffic. Taking over her husband’s business, FBI hot on the trail. One of the few complaints I had was about the casting of the husband–he is nowhere near good-looking enough for a woman who looks as good as Radha Mitchell looks at her age.
The other complaint is that the story takes place a little too slowly. The scenes themselves are right on pace, but the ultimate purpose of the episode seems to take too long to get to the point. If it hadn’t aired both the pilot and the second episode together, I would have been really lost as to what was going on.
Marta getting the hang of how to do business in this world
Also, Goran Visnjic needs more screen-time. He’s the big villain, the antagonist, and I think she needs to react to him more. She was a bit obnoxious toward him this first episode–going back to him in person so many times, but I expect that was the writers’ feeble attempt to give him the screen-time I just asked for. He’s a good character, but he should only be on when it’s really necessary. They gave Marta excuses to see him, which is kind of silly.
In any case, I’m ready for the new season behind Revenge (which looks to be a doozy this next week), and we’ll see how it goes. (PS: Just read this: According to TVbytheNumbers.com, the ratings were off the charts, so I guess it’ll be sticking around even if I don’t!)
Up next:
This week is a much lighter schedule, thankfully. My book editing is kicking my butt (evidenced by the late posts!), so a little break will be a good thing, for me anyway 🙂
This week, we have a new episode of The Following on Fox. CBS Monday is off this week and next week, but if you missed any episodes earlier, you may want to tune in for the reruns.
Tuesday night, new Go On, The New Normal, Smash, Golden Boy, and Justified. New Girl is off this week for an American Idol special, and as I mentioned, Cult is moving to this Friday effective immediately.
Wednesday night, both Chicago Fire and Nashville are off for the next two weeks, so it’ll just be Psych! and The Americans this week.
Thursday, once again, it’s just 1600 Penn. Grey’s and Elementary will return next Thursday, I believe, with new episodes, and then Friday this week, we have another new Golden Boy and Cult.
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