#rio x ruby

This is such an interesting question!

To be honest, no, I don’t think he would give them the time of day if it weren’t for Beth. If he hadn’t been so intrigued by her, Rio would’ve washed his hands of all of them much earlier (and it certainly would’ve been better for him). 

Could he like Annie? Well, I think Annie has the capacity to amuse Rio, but mostly she’d annoy him?

I think before they knew what they had with Brio, when they were still toying with the idea of an Annie/Rio hook up sometime in the future, there were some glimmers of her potential to attract Rio—i.e. she’s bold and reckless (like Beth), and while Beth becomes more morally gray than Annie, I think Annie was originally the one most comfortable with crime and least stressed about the ideas of “right” and “wrong”? Although she was joking, Annie was the one that laid out the grocery store robbery at first. When Beth decided that they actually would do it, Annie cheered. She had no qualms about the plan to move the drugs across the border via Sara’s girl scout troop, and I mean, there’s the entire Gregg debacle. 

So, yes, she has qualities that Rio might like (think also of the time when she promises to soothe Beth and assures Rio that everything will be fine when Beth wants to quit 0.5 seconds after she tells Rio that they’re “here to win, bitch”) but ultimately I don’t think she could maintain his interest, either romantically or platonically, once he got to know her better. 

But I mean, that begs the question: does Rio even want to get to know her better? Nope! I’m not sure I can remember a time where he speaks to her, specifically, first–rather, he always seems to react to her. He always directs his attention to Beth, who he sees as the leader. I think he sees her as Beth’s to manage, and she hasn’t proven herself to him a way that makes her “worthy” of his notice beyond the fact that she’s on his payroll. 

But also, there’s far more reasons for Rio not to like Annie, even if he did get to know her. Yes, he’d like her boldness and thrill for crime, but Annie lacks Beth’s composure and control. She’s more sensitive and empathetic and prone to guilt (think of her crying listening to Marian’s voicemails to Boomer), which Rio probably wouldn’t have much patience for.

When she’s sad, she talks to a turtle and blasts Train and cries. Beth takes a baseball bat to her husband’s office and drives into a cardboard cutout of him. I don’t think Rio would know what to do with Annie.  She’s a little less capable of handling her own shit (think of the ways Ben has to help manage their household, leaving sticky notes reminding her about rent, or reminding her that she “never cooks”) and I think this would drive Rio a little crazy. She needs to be taken care of more, and Rio, I think, is drawn to self-sufficiency.

Now, in a future where Beth and Rio become something legitimate? I think there’s a possibility that Rio could enjoy her company in small doses, particularly outside of crime. I think he’d get a kick out of seeing her as an ally in riling up Beth, and I think he’d like Ben (and begrudgingly give Annie some props for how she raised him). And I think Annie can dish it and take it, so Rio and her could have good sparring matches that, in the end, didn’t damage their relationship. I think they would be good “in-laws,” so to speak, even if Rio would be rolling his eyes a lot.

As for Ruby, I think they’re somewhat the same but less fraught with tension and annoyance. I don’t believe Ruby would ever really come around to liking Rio—ever—and I don’t think she’d be too bothered to pretend for his sake (nor would he) and they’d mostly keep their distance.

Ruby is good, though. Her husband was a cop. She wouldn’t do any of this, ever, at all, if it wasn’t a desperate necessity. I don’t think Rio and her have anything in common—besides maybe a relationship to the church? We don’t really know anything about Rio’s faith beyond how he accessorizes, but I don’t think even if Rio was a devout Catholic that it would do anything to draw the two of them together? I actually think it might be a wedge, because Ruby would have a hard time reconciling Rio’s faith with Rio’s propensity for violence. Even if Rio quit crime entirely (and I’m convinced that if he wanted to, he could get away with it—at least financially) he would still have a history, and that history would still be a barrier to any sort of fondness between the two of them?

As it is right now, I think Rio sometimes thinks she’s funny (“she thought it would be like driving for Uber”) but that’s mostly relational to the commentary she offers on Beth. I think he can correctly clock her as the most reluctant/anxious of the bunch, and he would be unphased if she quit and never returned. 

Also, I’m sure both of them are in the red for what happened with the drugs on the Girl Scout trip, and the only reason they’re unscathed after that is because of their relationship to Beth (and because it gave Rio an opportunity to draw Beth back in). I find it really, really interesting that the scene between the three of them in 2x10 does nothing to develop their relationships with him, and then we never see Rio confront them about failing to deliver the drugs?! I mean, how did they even report the news to him!!? How did he react?! What did they think was going to happen!!? They seem so surprised when Beth confronts them???

I think that definitely shows how little he thinks of them or cares about them—he doesn’t even bother to threaten them. They’re both just a means to an end to him—he puts up with them because, for some reason, Beth wants them to be a part of it all, too.