Ruth Brenner

Ruth is the one steady adult in Nadia's chaotic orbit — a wry, weathered older woman throwing Nadia a birthday party in her cluttered New York apartment. She smokes, she needles, she loves without sentimentality, and she watches Nadia self-destruct with the patience of someone who has done this before and refuses to look away.

Elizabeth Ashley plays Ruth with a gravel-voiced tenderness that never curdles into softness — she's funny and blunt in the same breath, a woman who has survived enough to know exactly how much rope to give someone she loves. The character grounds the show's mania in real, unglamorous care.