Jeremiah Brent Saved ‘Queer Eye’

I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong, and I was wrong about Queer Eye. When Bobby Berk announced he was leaving, and with all the mess about Jonathan Van Ness maybe being a “monster,” I thought the show was headed for ruin. But I was wrong.

When news broke that interior designer Jeremiah Brent, husband of interior designer Nate Berkus, was taking Berk’s spot, I honestly thought, “Poor Bobby.” I mean, Bobby’s cute and all, but this Jeremiah character is like a Disney prince come to life, with the floppy hair and knife-sharp jawline. The dynamic of Queer Eye was such that Bobby was Cinderella, and the rest of them got to go to the ball while he painted drywall and installed light fixtures. I had little faith that his storybook replacement could carry the weight of that responsibility with the same panache.

We’re introduced to Brent in the opening of season nine when he emerges from a large packing crate that was dropped from a helicopter onto the roof of a Las Vegas casino. The Fab Five crack that bad boy open to find him and he joins them to dance about the town. From then on, it’s like he’d been there all along. Bobby, cover your ears, but you can tell he just vibes with the group better. Or maybe the novelty of a new, cute boy put them all in a good mood. Either way, everyone’s very happy.

The first “hero” (I hate that they use that word unironically to describe their clients, but such is the unironic feel-good brand of this show) of the season was a gimme for Brent: a hippie-dippie former Vegas showgirl who loved color and crystals. Beyond making a sewing room that would actually contain all of her hoarded fabrics and ribbons, he couldn’t really mess it up. He proved himself as adequately touchy-feely and able to fall in love with strangers quickly, and even shed a few tears.

Episode two is when we started to see him come out of his shell. The hero was a lovable single mom who’d never felt safe in her home, but now wanted it to be her “sanctuary.” My Prince locked in and gave her cozy colors and soft furnishings. When she saw her new bedroom she fell onto the bed, looked up at its canopy, and told him, “You know, when we were shopping for beds I thought ‘A canopy would be nice,’ but I didn’t say it because I thought it would be too much, and I didn’t want to ask for too much. But you got me a canopy.” Jeremiah looked like he was going to break down and the rest of the Fab Five were like, “We’ll leave you two alone.” Jeremiah joined her on the canopied bed and said through tears, “I could tell you were holding back,” and she said, “You’re psychic,” and he said, “And there’s storage underneath.”

This is when Bobby became a distant memory, and I snagged that proverbial glass slipper from the step where he left it and struggled to squeeze my foot in. Take me away, sweet Prince.

Episode six was the climax of the season. The hero was another single mom, Jen’ya, who’d recently moved herself and her nine-year-old daughter into a new apartment after experiencing homelessness. The apartment was a blank slate, with nothing but a couch, a fold-up table, and two beds. This time we learn that Jeremiah has a soft spot for single mothers because he was raised by one. When he sees that Jen’ya has printed out Bible verses and taped them up around the apartment, he feels uncomfortable at first, but when he sees how welcoming she is to the Fab Five, he softens. “God said ‘Love,’” she tells them, hand-in-hand with Van Ness.

“As a member of the queer community, people of faith scare me a lot because it’s not inclusive, and to be included in her faith—it’s just very impactful,” he reflected in a confessional.

But he didn’t just leave it there. Once he got that first coat of primer up, he invited Jen’ya in to write her prayers and affirmations on the walls in permanent marker so they’d be there under the surface when he was done painting because when he was a kid he loved the book Harold and the Purple Crayon for how Harold “drew the world he wanted.” I’m really, truly sorry, but Bobby could never.

He knew Jen’ya would be emotional when she saw the finished apartment, so he brought her to see it alone. She barely got through the front door before she broke down in tears. The Prince gave her a castle fit for a Queen, all pink and blue and round and soft and twinkle and sparkle. He’s no mere Prince; he’s the King of Cozy, this guy. When Jen’ya walked into the bedroom, she literally fell to her knees and wept. All Jeremiah could do was join her on the floor and hold her while she cried.

“I spent so many nights just like this, praying to God to help me and to make it better, and he did,” she sobbed.

“I can’t believe you did all of this for us,” she told him. “I couldn’t be happier to be a part of it,” he choked out. “And this is storage,” he said, pulling out the drawer under the bed frame, at which point my heart burst in my chest and splattered all through my insides. Cue several shots of the rest of the Fab Five embracing Jeremiah while he cries.

“I’m really grateful because it’s everything you always wanted to give as a child of a single mother to your parent,” he reflected. “It’s every chance you wanted to give your mother, it’s every breath they’re never given, it’s every opportunity that they’re fighting their asses off for. It’s just a beautiful moment.”

Maybe the interior designer on this show is destined to be the Cinderella, carrying the weight of the grunt work and the manual labor. But Jeremiah Brent doesn’t make it seem like work. He’s not the Cinderella, he’s the heart.