Queer Eye’s Final Season Delivers Heart and Headaches

From sweet sibling reunions to a comedic tour guide, the show ends its run with memorable transformations and a couple of puzzling choices.

Queer Eye has been making headlines recently, and not just because its tenth and final season premiered Wednesday. Rumors of tension within the cast have circulated since Bobby Berk’s departure in 2023. Berk’s expertise was in home design and was a member of the Fab Five for eight seasons before refusing to renew his contract. Karamo Brown, who focuses on culture, was notably absent from press events promoting the final season. Instead of attending, his publicist sent pointed statements on his behalf, alleging the Fab Five of bullying and inflicting emotional abuse. 

It’s a sour ending for a show built on joy and transformation. The bitterness surrounding the series finale extends beyond Karamo’s comments to certain casting choices in season 10. To me, the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area offers a treasure trove of potential heroes across race, background, and class. Although three of the five selections felt in tune with 

what we typically see on Queer Eye, two stood out as puzzling.

Let’s start with the positives. Dorriene and Jo are two of my favorite heroes the show has ever featured. The sisters, now later in life, are living together for the first time since childhood after the death of Dorriene’s wife of 40 years. Grieving and withdrawn, Dorriene isolates herself from the family. She’s more comfortable retreating to her room to eat ice cream and listen to Diana Ross, and unfortunately for Jo, she doesn’t understand why her sister is so distant. As the Fab Five step in, it becomes clear that Dorriene’s guardedness stems from growing up as the only queer sibling in a large family, decades before gay marriage was legalized.

Beyond its rich portrayal of sisterhood and the differing experiences of two kids raised in the same household, Dorriene and Jo are simply fun to watch. There’s a reason some of the show’s best heroes are a little older and wiser. At first, the sisters seem like opposites, but it doesn’t take long for the Fab Five to uncover the shared interests that help reunite them.

One of those bonds is sweets, or “yums,” as Jo calls them. The sisters work seamlessly in the kitchen together, elated to recreate their mother’s pineapple upside-down cake recipe. By the end of the week, the two discover they genuinely enjoy each other’s company. Dorriene’s sharp wit and charming stubbornness, paired with Jo’s pure joy, especially when it comes to the snack rack in her bedroom, make this one of the series’ most heartfelt and hilarious episodes.

However, not all heroes scream with excitement when the Fab Five arrive. Kate, a single mom and firefighter from Silver Spring in episode 3, is one of the most reluctant heroes in the series’ history. While the Fab Five voice their frustration with her guardedness, it’s hard to fault a woman who has recently endured a series of traumatic events. It’s also totally reasonable to be uncomfortable filming in extreme heat, especially because last summer was one of D.C.’s hottest ever recorded. 

All that considered, Kate’s episode spotlights the team’s skill at its best. Antoni Porowski meets her where she is with a simple seafood recipe; Jonathan van Ness embraces her natural curls in a way that visibly shifts her confidence; and Tan France, even with the challenge of Kate’s discomfort with clothes, manages to find pieces she actually feels comfortable in. Even the armpit Botox feels like a genuinely thoughtful detail that could meaningfully improve Kate’s daily life.

To be clear, tough-to-crack heroes can be compelling; if everyone greeted the process with the enthusiasm of Jo and Dorriene, the show just wouldn’t be as good. But as Jeremiah notes in episode 3, people have to want to change; a detail he didn’t include in that assertion is people need to be ready to change. It’s clear Kate hadn’t fully healed from the traumatic events that preceded filming. 

Karamo’s approach during their first one-on-one was, at best, insensitive. Sure it was difficult working with someone so guarded, but his tone felt unnecessarily harsh and devoid of empathy. Ultimately, production’s decision to spotlight Kate at this moment in her life feels questionable. Though the episode ends in typical Queer Eye fashion, neatly tied with a bow, I wish we had met Kate further along in her healing journey. If an episode requires breaking a guest down and framing them as a mess in need of saving, it may not be worth broadcasting.  

I’ve been trying to balance the season’s highs and lows, but I can’t move on without addressing the absurdity of episode two, or should I say the episode with charter school propaganda. Starting with the positives, Mike is a cool hero. He’s kind, almost to a fault, and completely adrift when it comes to fashion, grooming, and food, which makes for a satisfying transformation.

The decision to renovate the charter school’s teacher lounge rather than Mike’s home is baffling. Jeremiah Brent’s home makeovers, though I like him and think he’s a strong addition to the cast, often feel more like a Better Homes & Gardens spread than a space with personality. That flaw is on full display here as the redesigned lounge leans into tacky minimalism and somehow makes the windowless room feel even more sterile. 

The choice to spotlight a charter school is even more troubling given the political climate, especially in Washington, D.C., where representatives are hellbent on slashing the Department of Education’s budget in half. Highlighting a charter school in the city is particularly fraught, given these institutions’ history of racial and socioeconomic segregation. Needless to say, I just couldn’t get into this episode. It would have been far more compelling to focus on Mike’s life pivots and family rather than the school itself. 

Episodes four and five were classic Queer Eye. They were fun, but not anything particularly groundbreaking. Picking a tour guide as a hero was exciting, and it’s not often you see boaters associated with D.C., so that was also a fresh choice. Overall, I still vouch for this season and for a show that has celebrated queer joy for eight years. That said, I expected a little more from a D.C. season. I hope the cast’s in-fighting fades so viewers can fully enjoy the final episodes and reflect on the show’s impact. And I hope the cast can reunite one day and be proud of their contributions, perhaps over a sweet treat and a Grace Jones record.