Lovecraft Country: Everything you need to know about Ruby Baptiste

Get to know the character Ruby Baptiste in HBO’s Lovecraft Country.

Warning! Spoilers for Lovecraft Country episode 5 follow below.

HBO’s Lovecraft Country is full of complex, unique characters with their own strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities. And because of that, it’s worth breaking down and analyzing all of the show’s main characters to understand more about them.

In the last character profile, we looked at the character Montrose Freeman, played by Michael K. Williams. Montrose, the father of Atticus has had his own issues bottled and pent up. But what about Ruby? We see her go to great lengths just to get by in the world as a white woman after taking the spell. But what else is there to know about her?

Read on below to learn more about the character Wunmi Mosaku portrays in Lovecraft Country, Ruby Baptiste.

Ruby Baptiste Lovecraft Country character profile

Ruby Baptiste: Introduction and overview

Ruby Baptise (Wumni Mosaku) is the sister of Letitia Lewis. Ruby is a hopeful, brilliant, extraordinary, and unapologetic blues singer. She’s doing everything she can in order to get a job at Marshall Field as a sales clerk. Ruby is constantly fighting to be acknowledged from the world but she hasn’t pushed the boundaries. That’s until last weekend’s episode when Ruby gets the chance of a lifetime to work at Marshall Field… but there’s a small catch, she has to take the magic potion.

Relationships

Ruby is the half-sister to Leti Lewis and the sister to Marvin Baptiste. Leti and Ruby have a difficult relationship with each other, and it seems they had a difficult relationship with their mother as well. (We don’t have much information about her father, unfortunately.) The thing about Ruby and Leti’s relationship is there is no politeness between them. They are honest and can love each other and hate each other at the same time. They are sisters but have very different ideas about responsibility, family, and loyalty. Ruby was taking care of their mother when she was sick, and Leti wasn’t there. Ruby has been left with the burden of being responsible and of holding it down. Leti didn’t tell Ruby or Marvin about the money their “mother” left for her, which caused another ripple in their relationship.

After Ruby learned about Tamara, the new black sales clerk who landed the job at Marshall Field, she decides to sing her heartbreak at a local bar where she met William (Jordan Patrick Smith), Christina Braithwaite’s “henchman.” Ruby and William struck up a conservation about her not getting her dream job, and William suddenly suggested he could help. You could quickly see that William and Ruby had a connection, but Ruby didn’t know if getting involved with him was right. As we saw in last week’s episode, William and Ruby’s relationship shifted in a dramatic way that helped with her dream job.

Motives

Ruby tries to live with her sister Leti and thinks she wants to finally have a real relationship, but Leti ends up lying to her about the money for the house. Ruby wanted to have a relationship but she thinks Leti is selfish and messed up.

Ruby has dreams of working behind the counter at Marshall Field. She has been working hard on her resume to seek the qualifications in order to get the job which outshines the white competition. She’s willing to play the game to succeed as much as she can. But when Ruby decided to visit Marshall Field, and she discovered they already hired a Black salesgirl. She desperately wanted this job, but she realized it’s not about skin color, her curves or being a woman. She just wants to explore the world despite racism, injustice, and inequality. So when Ruby got romantically approached by William, who offered her a life-changing opportunity, she quickly accepted it, no questions asked. Ruby woke up and realized she shapeshifted into a white woman. And she decided to take on this new world with a sort of newfound freedom and immediately lands her dream job. After finally landing her dream job at Marshall Field, Ruby starts to notice how twisted some white people can really be.

Strengths and weaknesses

Ruby says that most days, she’s happy to be both Black and a woman, “but the world keeps interrupting, and [she is] sick of being interrupted.” She has hope that if you work really hard, your dreams can come true. You start to see Ruby mask her rage over the injustice that she’s experienced. Ruby was very protective over Tamara, her Black co-worker at Marshall Field, by violating her boss with a stiletto heel. Ruby chose to help Tamara, who had been assaulted by her racist boss, because whether she liked her or not, she could relate to the hardship and experience of being a Black woman. Ruby decided to put their differences aside to show loyalty and compassion to someone in need.

What’s next?

As we saw in last week’s episode, Ruby experienced the privileged life as a white woman after William gave her a potion that transforms her into one. Towards the end of the episode, it was revealed that William and Christina are the same person. Christina transformed into William with the help of the same potion she gave Ruby. It’s a pretty big reveal, and now the question remains is, what does Christina truly want with Ruby? We saw Leti and Ruby have a huge argument about their mother, but hopefully they resolve their issues before the season. Will Ruby find out the truth about Atticus, Leti, and Montrose’s secrets and their connection to Christina?

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