A friend recently told me she was guest-starring on Ruthless, a BET+ show I’d never heard of. When I found out it was a Tyler Perry production, I immediately understood why. The title fell on deaf ears—my deaf ears.
Ruthless, a spin-off of Perry’s The Oval, follows Ruth Truesdale (Melissa L. Williams) as she becomes entrenched in the sinister Rakudushi cult. To protect herself and her daughter, Ruth is forced to commit increasingly dark acts as she plots her escape.
The cult is led by The Highest (Matt Cedeño), a manipulative and dangerous leader whose mood swings between kindness and violence. His right-hand man, Dikahn (Lenny Thomas), ruthlessly enforces the cult’s strict rules. Elder Mother Marva (the brilliant Baadja-Lyne Odums) manipulates the women with a mix of cruelty and twisted maternal care. It’s a show driven by extreme behavior, with no shades of gray—just clear lines of good versus evil.
Characters like The Highest, Dikahn, and Elder Mother feel closer to cartoon villains like Dick Dastardly and Muttley than complex human beings. Meanwhile, the FBI agents sent to stop them make Barney Fife look like the second coming of Columbo.
While I respect Perry as a mogul, I’ve always considered his work, well, trash—but watchable trash. So, I avoided Ruthless the way I’d avoid an elevator with a COVID-19 patient.
Then, two weeks ago, I caught the flu. Bedridden and bored, I thought, “Why not? I’ll watch to support my friend.” The pilot, filmed in 2020 during the pandemic, was virtually unwatchable. The acting was worse than a high school production of Our Town, and the script felt like Perry wrote a first draft and went straight to filming without even thinking about a rewrite.
But then something strange happened—I watched Episode 2. Then Episode 3. And now, I’m in Season 4, completely hooked. WTF?
Let’s get one thing straight: Ruthless is not great TV. It’s not even good TV. The villains are cartoonish, the heroes barely likable, and the dialogue? On-the-nose to the point of parody. If we played a drinking game every time a character says “Are you sure?” or “Hello. How are you?” we’d end up in the ER by the end of the episode. Subtext? What’s that?
Perry, despite his empire, seems allergic to creating morally gray characters like Walter White or Don Draper. In Ruthless, you’re either good or evil—no nuance. Yet, Ruthless has been renewed for a sixth season on BET+, so clearly, I’m not alone in being drawn to this extreme spectacle.
So why are we hooked on a show that features such flat, exaggerated characters and uncomfortable scenes of abuse, both physical and sexual? I think it comes down to our attraction to extremes. Ruthless taps into a certain kind of escapism. The world of the Rakudushi cult is so far removed from real life that it becomes a space where we can indulge in exaggerated emotions and situations without consequences.
It’s like watching horror movies—the intensity, the shocks, the unrelenting tension. Ruthless offers an almost grotesque level of intensity, where every conversation feels like an interrogation. Will The Highest laugh with you, chain you, or worse—violate you? It’s unpredictable, and that’s what makes it compelling.
The show is also extreme in its portrayal of abuse. Both men and women endure scenes of violence and manipulation like River (Colin McCalla) being hogtied or Lacy (Allis Willis) getting gang-raped. It’s exhausting, yet somehow, we keep watching.
There’s something primal about witnessing such extreme danger—even if it’s absurd. It’s not about empathy for the characters, who feel more like Perry’s puppets, but about watching how far the show will go. In this sense, Ruthless doesn’t aim for depth. Instead, it offers a distorted, amplified view of power dynamics, control, and submission, laid bare in all its brutal, over-the-top glory.
Maybe we’re drawn to shows like Ruthless because they simplify good and evil in a way that’s comforting, even if it’s uncomfortable to watch. In real life, morality is messy and complex. In Ruthless, the lines are bold and clear—there’s no ambiguity, just stark evil battling desperate attempts at survival.
Perry’s villains, like The Highest, are closer to comic-book villains like The Joker than to complex, morally gray figures like Aunt Lydia or Gus Fring. And maybe that’s why we watch—sometimes, life’s moral complexities are exhausting, and we crave a simpler, more extreme narrative. The Highest isn’t a conflicted character—he’s just evil, and there’s a strange satisfaction in seeing that play out.
The series is also, undeniably, extreme in its portrayal of abuse. Both women and men endure harrowing scenes of violence, manipulation, and sexual exploitation. These scenes are uncomfortable, sometimes even unbearable, yet they contribute to the show’s addictive, train-wreck quality.
There’s River (Colin McCalla)being hogtied. There’s Andrew (Blue Kimble) with his over the top performance as FBI undercover agent, Andrew. Is he with the cult? The FBI? There’s another FBI agent who is also sleeping with his other agent’s wives. There’s Lacy (Allis Willis) getting gang-raped. I’m exhausted.
There’s something about watching people navigate such extreme danger—however unrealistic—that taps into a primal part of our brains. It’s not about empathy for the characters, who feel more like puppets in Perry’s hands, but about witnessing just how far the show will go. In a sense, Ruthless doesn’t aim to create depth but instead offers an amplified, distorted mirror of power dynamics, control, and submission. It’s all laid bare, raw and brutal, making it hard to look away.
On a deeper level, maybe we’re drawn to shows like Ruthless because they simplify the complexities of good and evil in a way that is almost comforting, even when it’s uncomfortable to watch. In real life, morality is messy. People contain multitudes, and there are no clear lines between right and wrong. But in Ruthless, the lines are so bold and so clear that there’s no mistaking who is the villain and who is the victim. There’s no ambiguity, no moral grayness, just stark, exaggerated evil against desperate attempts at survival.
In contrast to characters like Walter White or Don Draper, who exist in the moral gray, Perry’s villains, like The Highest, are closer to the Joker or The Goblin (they actually are more complicated), engaging in abusive acts with the same detachment as Art the Clown in the Terrifier series. And maybe that’s why we watch.
Sometimes, the moral complexity of real life is exhausting, and we crave a simpler, if more extreme, narrative. The Highest isn’t a conflicted character like Aunt Lydia or Gus Fring (who can make you feel compassion toward them)—he’s just evil. And there’s a strange kind of catharsis in seeing that play out without apology.
REELated:
Ruthless is both difficult to watch and impossible to quit. It’s grotesque, ridiculous, and taps into something deep in the human psyche—the need for escape, the pull of spectacle, and the satisfaction of watching a world where good and evil are clear-cut. It’s bad, it’s extreme, and somehow, that’s exactly why we keep tuning in.
I’m about to start Season 5, and I can’t wait to see what torture my friend endures.
Bottom Line: Tyler Perry’s Ruthless is ridiculously bad, but beware you will get hooked on it.
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The Geek is a working screenwriter, director and screenwriting instructor.
