True Blood Season 3: Who Is Ruby Jean Reynolds?

Welcome to the seventh in a series of features about the new characters coming to True Blood in season 3. We’ll be taking a look at these new characters using both information from casting calls and from the novels on which the show is based. Beware, spoilers ahead!

Who is Ruby Jean Reynolds?

Alfre Woodard plays Ruby Jean Reynolds

True Blood introduces a brand new character in season 3, Ms. Ruby Jean Reynolds. This African-American woman is in her late 40s/early 50s and resides in a private facility for the mentally impaired. In fact, the casting call referred to her as “clearly deranged”. What caused this mental disconnect? We assume that will be one of the major questions to be answered about Ruby Jean.

We also know that Ruby Jean is Lafayette’s mother (and Tara’s aunt), which makes the fact that she is intensely religious and viciously homophobic rather ironic. Lafayette’s love interest this season is Jesus Velasquez, an orderly at the institution where Ruby Jean lives. In other words, Lafayette and Jesus become an item thanks to Ruby Jean. We’ve been warned that she won’t be a character the audience will love, she’s not at all supportive of Lafayette, but we can’t help being eager to learn more about Lafayette by getting to know his mother. Will she have a supernatural connection?

Alfre Woodard will play Ruby Jean on True Blood.

Ruby Jean Reynolds in Brief

Sex: Female
Species: Human
Age: late 40s/early 50s
Status: Widowed?
Relatives: Son, Lafayette and niece, Tara
Occupation: Retired
Location: Nursing home