Reception
BuddyTV staff columnist Don Williams felt the addition of Ruby was a "cheap ploy" to attract teen male viewers, and Cassidy "was cast more for her looks than her acting prowess". He also believed the character distracted viewers from the "brotherly bond that made the show so special in the first place". However, he later admitted she "remains one of the more interesting and ambiguous evildoers on the series". Although IGN's Diana Steenbergen had looked forward to Ruby's introduction, she ultimately found the third-season incarnation a "wasted" character who did little to improve the series. Her main concerns consisted of Ruby's "unlikable and manipulative" qualities and her tendency to make the Winchesters "look stupid". The actress, in Steenbergen's opinion, "never quite " the "tough chick" persona of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Faith or Battlestar Galactica's Six. TV Guide's Tina Charles, however, liked Ruby's action-packed introduction in "The Magnificent Seven". She was "intrigued" by the character in her second appearance, and felt Cassidy was "doing a good job". Ruby made a "plausible addition" to "Malleus Maleficarum", with Charles finding it "cool" to learn Ruby's backstory due to its implications for Dean's storyline. Karla Peterson of the San Diego Union-Tribune, on the other hand, thought Cassidy "wasn't awful" in her first appearance. Though "not great enough for Ackles to really play off of" in "Malleus Maleficarum", the actress was "good enough to make her weaker acting chops kind of work for her". Believing Ruby had met her demise in the season finale, Peterson noted the character "got gone just as getting interesting" and deemed her a "decent traveling ".
In her debut, Cortese impressed Peterson "even less than the old Ruby". While Peterson was fine with the sexual relationship between Ruby and Sam, she felt the "seduction came out of nowhere" in "I Know What You Did Last Summer". Contributing to this problem was Cortese's inability to "pull it off", making the "whole thing gratuitous and clumsy". Conversely, Peterson enjoyed the performances of Anna Williams and Michelle Hewitt-Williams as Ruby's temporary hosts in the episode; the former was "great", while she found the latter "sassy" and " her already". She "loved" Ruby's death in the finale, describing it as "a beautiful thing". Similar to Peterson, Williams considered Cortese's acting skills "a bit distracting", but noted she improved over time. Steenbergen considered Cortese an "acceptable Ruby", but posited she was often "too girlish to connect with the previous incarnations of the character". Cortese also "seemed out of her depth in the acting department" towards the end of the season. Ruby's seeming betrayal of Anna in "Heaven and Hell" would "have added some welcome layers to her character", but her true intentions made the character development "less exciting". Steenbergen deemed Ruby's overall deceit of Sam, however, a "great revelation".
Fans were also very wary at first of bringing in female characters to the male-dominated show. To make matters worse, Kripke wrote a lackluster scene intended solely for the audition process. Fans quickly came across it on casting sites, and developed a feeling the character "really ". However, Kripke believed fans would change their minds about Ruby after learning of her demonic side. By the middle of the third season, Kripke felt enough fans were "responding positively to vindicate the character", and that most were "finally embracing her" by the third season finale. When the character returns in Season Four, she is much different than her third season counterpart. Cortese feels while the drastic change made fans angry, the flashbacks provided in "I Know What You Did Last Summer" shed some light on Ruby's new mindset and made fans more accepting of the character.
Read more about this topic: Ruby (Supernatural)
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