Episode Report Card Jeff Long: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Accentuate the Positive
By Jeff Long | Season 8 | Episode 10 | Aired on 09.30.2010
He interviews that his print is based on a plus sign, which represents his -- pause -- HIV positive status. Wow. He cries as he tells us that he's held this a secret for 10 years. Oh my God. He's only 32. He's had this secret inside of him for almost a third of his life. He says that keeping the secret from his family has caused him a lot of shame and he can't do it anymore. He tells us that he's too good a person to be a coward. Bless his heart. I'm fighting getting preachy right now. I guess this isn't really the place for it. That said, the shame that he's talking about is what leads a lot of guys to act out in ways that are a lot riskier than they probably would if they weren't carrying that burden. Makes me really sad, especially when you have someone like Mondo in front of you who has so much to offer the world. Not that I know the first thing about how he contracted.
Tim comes in to take everyone to Mood. Their prints will be available the next day. While they are at Mood, Andy interviews that his pattern is a series of circles, like memory bubbles. Hmm, I think everything's going to seem a little lame after April's and Mondo's stories. Christopher's pattern is blue (for his mom's favorite color) with gray lines (for his home, San Francisco). Valerie tells us that she is refocused and will be designing like she did in the beginning of the competition. Still talking, that one.
At the workroom, everyone's working when Tim enters. He tells them to keep working, but announces that he is sending in some special guests and they should "be nice" to them. Gretchen wonders if it isn't eliminated designers. Christopher interviews that his first thought is that it's going to be a client and what if they don't like the print. Then, we see shots of the designers FREAKING OUT. Maybe it's Martha Stewart? Commercials.
It's their moms! And, seriously, I don't know what it is, but the sound and look of excitement on all of the designers makes me cry like I'm watching Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" video. Or, the trailer for Burlesque, a film which I believe might possibly change my life. Valerie cries like a baby and interviews that she cries at Hallmark commercials. She's that girl. Mondo gives his mom a long hug and interviews that he didn't want to let go.
Gretchen, who is still alone, deduces from the emotions she's witnessing that these are the moms of her fellow designers. We see her wipe away a tear. She interviews that this is scary for her because her own mother has a very hard life. Her stepfather is wheelchair bound and her mother can't leave him because they are "not very well-off." Seriously, that phrase breaks my heart. Whatever you feel about Gretchen, she carries herself with a lot of dignity and stuff like that can't be easy to say. She says that she had a panic attack at the thought of her mother not being there. Then, her mother walks in with open arms and Gretchen and I cry. She's so happy to see her mom. She cries to her mom that she was so afraid that she wouldn't be able to come, but Mom says that of course she was going to come.