Red Widow: The Complete First Season

An affluent soccer mom receives a crash course in how to become a gangland figure in ABC's remake of the Netherlands small-screen melodrama Penoza, transplanted here to northern California. Marina owner Marta Walraven (Radha Mitchell) grew up in a Russian-American mafia clan and culture, but she thought that her husband, Evan (Anson Mount), was an honestly reformed hood. Turns out that Evan was still involved in shady dealings, and he's gunned down in the aftermath of the theft of millions of dollars worth of cocaine from mob titan Nicolae Schiller (Goran Visnjic). When the innocent widow is told that she's responsible by default for the debt, she starts along the path of resolving the matter by becoming a reluctant (but surprisingly competent) underling for the sinister Schiller. Meanwhile, she continues to try to locate the missing drugs and solve the mystery of who murdered Evan and why, while also struggling to keep her kids—especially teenager Gabriel (Sterling Beaumon)—from being seduced by the thug life. Kind of a domestic noir, Red Widow is an effective enough suspense series, if the viewer can buy into the notion that just about every male in Marta's life is duplicitous and dangerous. Compiling all eight episodes from the 2013 debut season, DVD extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette, deleted scenes, and bloopers. Recommended. (C. Cassady)