That conversation made Ms. Bans want to honor women like her mother, who have kept going when the playing field was anything but level. Eventually, that tribute became a compensatory fantasy, showing what might happen if women did rock the boat, if they did ruffle feathers, if they did take what they want. When we meet the characters of “Good Girls,” they’re struggling, they’re powerless, they haven’t reaped the rewards they’ve been promised. A few ski masks, a handful of toy guns, an “All right, everybody be cool and nobody gets hurt” and those rewards start coming.

“It’s probably not the best choice,” Ms. Bans said. “It’s not a responsible choice.”

It’s certainly a bold choice to shove a climactic event like the heist into the pilot, rather than build up to it over many weeks, but Ms. Bans seemed unconcerned that viewers won’t stick around. “We’re never really struggling for lack of a story,” she said. “Usually we’re trying to prune story out of our episodes because they’re too overstuffed.”

“Good Girls” has a punchier, more comedic feel than the Shondaverse of “Scandal,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice” (series on which Ms. Bans worked), but shares some of those shows’ D.N.A. As Ms. Bans said, Ms. Rhimes imbued in her “a sense of risk-taking, of not keeping it safe, of pushing your characters to do things that scare them.”

Here, doing things that scare them allows these suburban moms to finally own their smarts, skills and mettle. As Ms. Hendricks’s Beth says in the pilot, “We have accomplished way harder than this. I once made 300 damn cupcakes in one night and they were both nut- and gluten-free.” So what’s a little crime?