[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 1 finale of Lovecraft Country, "Full Circle."]

The season finale of HBO's Lovecraft Country leaves a lot to be desired where Ruby Baptiste (played by the incredibly skilled Wunmi Mosaku) is concerned. Ruby was frequently the heart of Lovecraft Country, bringing moments of clarity and focus to a show that tended to get lost in its science-fiction sandbox. After watching Ruby develop in so many fascinating directions over the course of Lovecraft Country's nine seasons, the final blow felt from the revelation that Ruby was killed (off-camera, which only adds insult to injury) was almost too much to bear.

Knowing Ruby was casually offed by Christina (Abbey Lee) at the start of the season finale's third act absolutely blows. There, I said it. There was no real reason for Christina to have killed Ruby, although it did make some sense that Ruby's willingness to trust her very shady white love interest would come back to bite her at some point. Throughout the episode, viewers were made to believe that Ruby would finally see the light and return to Leti's (Jurnee Smollett) side to bring Christina down. After spending so much time literally and figuratively sleeping with the enemy, the scales fell from Ruby's eyes after her tense conversation with Leti at their mother's grave. Ruby was poised to turn into a different kind of double agent, now working for the good guys as she attempted to get the ingredients from Christina's lab that would help Leti and Tic (Jonathan Majors) bind Christina to Tic so he could defeat her.

But then to find out Christina just... killed Ruby? Without any real goodbye or, perhaps, dialogue between the two characters indicating Christina caught on to Ruby's plan? And, worst of all, to kill Ruby off-screen as if her death is just some inconsequential afterthought that can be explained away with a few lines? After so much time spent fighting with Leti, working through lifelong grudges, trying to forge her own path in a world filled with magic, and even exploring her own identity as a Black, queer woman, Ruby's life was thrown away for the sake of tying up loose ends. But Ruby is not, nor was she ever, a loose end to be casually tied up.

For so many reasons, Ruby's death in the Lovecraft Country finale doesn't make sense and feels like a major disservice to the character as well as Mosaku. One of the biggest reasons Ruby's ending sucks, in comparison with the endings devised for other characters, has to do with her role as a Black queer woman living in a majority white and majority straight 1950s America. I can't speak to (nor would I ever attempt) Ruby's character arc wherein her Blackness is concerned. What I can speak to is how her character as a queer woman was developed.

In general, Lovecraft Country never made character development a priority, but it succeeded in at least providing some interesting shades to Ruby's emergence as a woman discovering her sexuality and queer desire through the show's occult lens. I have to applaud the effort made to willingly explore the implications of Ruby's relationship with Christina. Here were two women who came together not just out of physical attraction, but because there were mutual benefits in their alignment. I know that Christina using Ruby to get closer to Leti and Tic is bad, but Lee's performance went so far as to imply Christina also gave a shit about Ruby's feelings from time to time, too.

So, to see the show spend almost as much time examining Christina and Ruby's relationship as it did Leti and Tic's similarly nascent relationship throughout the season made it seem as if Lovecraft Country would, perhaps, give a damn about how to wrap up the former couple's storyline. And yes, technically both couples experienced similarly tragic endings, but Tic's death was inevitable, as was Christina's given the fact she was the show's villain. Sacrificing Ruby instead of, say, having her and Leti come together to process their losses together is far too extra.

Then again, maybe I'm a fool for believing Lovecraft Country would perhaps get its act together and finally do right by one of the two queer characters — can't forget about Montrose (Michael Kenneth Williams) — it took the time to introduce before subsequently mishandling. Lovecraft Country never knew exactly what to do with any of its characters, nor did it place much of a premium on exploring the psychological or emotional effects of the magical or sci-fi events happening to its characters. So my surprise that Lovecraft Country casually disposed of an actually groundbreaking character with a near-callous degree of an afterthought is minimal. As is often the case with a movie or TV show that treats queer people as if they're disposable bystanders, Ruby's death is a reminder of what not to do with a character like hers. Honestly? I wish her death hadn't happened at all.

All episodes of Lovecraft Country are now available to stream on HBO Max. For more, read our season finale interview with showrunner Misha Green.

Allie Gemmill is the Weekend Contributing Editor for Collider. You can follow them on Twitter @_matineeidle.