Rubí

Plot

Rubí Pérez (Bárbara Mori) is a poor woman interested only in money. She studies at an exclusive university thanks to the financial support from Cristina (Paty Diaz), her hard-working older sister. Rubí hopes to become rich by befriending rich people. She is best friends with Maribel de la Fuente (Jacqueline Bracamontes), a kind and wealthy young woman. Maribel has a small defect in her leg, which prevents her from having a normal social life. Rubí is actually jealous of Maribel's social status.

Rubí meets Maribel's boyfriend Héctor Ferrer (Sebastián Rulli), an architect, and his best friend Alejandro Cárdenas (Eduardo Santamarina), a doctor. Héctor intrigues her because she knows he is very rich, and marrying a rich man has always been her ambition to leave poverty behind. However, she finds herself falling in love with Alejandro. Héctor and Maribel get engaged. Rubí starts dating Alejandro, but when she finds out that he is from a middle-class background and is not rich, she dumps him, though it breaks her heart. Rubi's mother tries to make Rubi see that money is not everything and that she will regret leaving Alejandro. She's then sets out to seduce Héctor.

Héctor quickly falls under Rubí's spell. On Héctor and Maribel's wedding day, Héctor leaves a devastated Maribel at the altar and elopes with Rubí instead. Rubí finally has the lifestyle and money that she has always dreamed of. On her wedding night Hector tries to make love to Rubi, Rubi keeps thinking about Alejandro, which makes her run out to the beach crying. Despite this, she is still in love with Alejandro, though he vows to her that he would never forgive her for what she did to Maribel. Hector was supposed to move to New York and work on an important project, but is kicked out after he dumps Maribel at the altar.

Héctor decides to travel the world with Rubí, since he is not entirely sure that she has gotten over Alejandro. They are away for three years. When they return, Rubí discovers that Alejandro is now very rich and has a fiancée named Sonia (Marlene Favela). During an argument with Rubí on a glass bridge, the floor below Sonia shatters, and she falls through the glass and dies. Rubí comforts Alejandro after Sonia's death and seduces him once again. He and Rubí become lovers.

When he hears that Rubí was at the scene when Sonia died, he has her arrested for murder. They seemingly hate each other now, but Rubí begins to feel love for him again when she learns that she is pregnant with his child. Because she does not want to divorce Héctor and lose her money and status, she lies and tells Héctor that the baby is his. She is released from jail, since it is ruled that Sonia's death was accidental.

Héctor overhears Rubí telling her friend Loreto (Miguel Pizarro) that the child is actually Alejandro's. Angry and humiliated, Héctor realizes that she never loved him, so he keeps her prisoner in her own home. Rubí manages to get away from Héctor, and the truth about who is the father of her child finally comes out. By now, Alejandro is aware that Maribel has been secretly in love with him and that he too has feelings for her, but he chooses to stay with Rubí for the sake of their baby.

Sometime later, Rubí saves her niece Fernanda (Kristel Casteele) from being hit by a car; Rubí is hit instead and has a miscarriage. She blames Héctor for the miscarriage, since he has hit her before because of his jealousy. Héctor tries to prove that Rubí actually lost her baby after being hit by a car, but no one believes him except for Elena (Yadhira Carrillo). She is the assistant to the Count of Aragón and in love with Héctor. Héctor is fatally injured in a car accident and dies before he could tell Alejandro, who is performing Héctor's surgery and trying to save his life, the truth about Rubí.

Héctor left everything in his will to Rubí, much to his parents' chagrin. However, Elena, who hates Rubí, makes sure that all of Rubí's money is lost in the stock market. Alejandro is unjustly charged with intentionally letting Héctor die on the operating table and is arrested. Immediately afterwards, the suspicions are proven unfounded and the charges against him are dropped. Upon his release, he uncovers exactly how Rubí lost their baby. It is also revealed that Elena is pregnant with Héctor's child, though he never knew it.

Disgusted by the damage that she has done, Alejandro pays Rubí a visit one last time and tells her that it is over between them: he has chosen Maribel. Rubí begs him not to leave her, even humiliating herself by getting down on her knees. He leaves her and begins to walk down the stairs. As Rubí follows him, running down the staircase while holding onto the rail and screaming that she will never let him go, she loses her grip on the rail, falls several stories down, and crashes into a glass table below.

To save her life, doctors have to amputate her leg. When Rubí wakes up, she finds out to her horror that her leg was amputated. Even more devastating, her beautiful face is now full of scars because of multiple glass cuts. Rubí escapes from the hospital.

Finding the wedding date of Alejandro and Maribel, she shows up unseen at the church. She sights a gun through a crack on a door, targeting Alejandro, but she cannot bring herself to shoot him. She then aims at Maribel, but her sister Cristina, Maribel's maid of honor, is in the way and blocking a clean shot. Rubí relents and hides in a corner of the churchyard, despondent.

After the wedding, her niece Fernanda wanders over to Rubí's hiding place. Rubí shows her scarred face to Fernanda, but the little girl is not repulsed by it. On the contrary, she feels sympathy for her favorite aunt. When Rubí asks her if she would like to continue meeting her secretly and serve as an instrument to get her revenge and ruin Alejandro's life, Fernanda happily agrees. Rubí limps away, dressed in rags.

Years later, Fernanda (now played by Bárbara Mori) is all grown up, bearing a striking resemblance to Rubí. She visits her aunt, who is living in a one-room flat. After hearing that Alejandro has returned to Mexico after years of living abroad, Rubí tells Fernanda that Alejandro and Maribel have a son, and that her job will be making both Alejandro and his son fall in love with her in order to break Maribel's heart.

Alejandro is now the director of a hospital. One day he finds Fernanda in his office. He is utterly shocked, mistaking her for Rubí. She greets him by pulling him by his tie and bringing him in for what looks like a kiss. The screen caption, The End..? then appears.

Supporting cast

Reception

Canal de las Estrellas's October 22 finale broadcast of Rubí earned a rating of 28 points. Univision's March 7 finale broadcast of Rubí was watched by 8 million viewers.

Remake

In February 2010, ABS-CBN announced Televisa had given them to permit to do a Pinoy version of the series. The Pinoy adaptation stars Angelica Panganiban and Shaina Magdayao with Jake Cuenca and Diether Ocampo as their leading men. It was launched as one of the network's offerings for the 60th year celebration of Pinoy Soap Opera ("ika-60 taon ng Pinoy Soap Opera") during the Trade Launch for the 1st quarter that same year, entitled "Bagong Simula" (New Beginning).