"Design Star" 3 recaplet (Finale): Team Gay goes down, and where's Mikey?

It's true. Team Gay bit the dust last night, after the wildly talented and popular Matt Locke made it to the final two in Design Star's third season. The winner was bubbly blonde Jennifer Bertrand, whose artistic way with a paintbrush triumphed over Matt's minimalist design style.

Before I go on — and oh yes, I will be going on — a few words about words.

I believe not just that the world would be a betterplace had Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election, but that in fact, he should have won it. The distinction being that I think his loss was not just unfortunate but the result of an injustice that resulted in the unspeakable hideousness of the last eight years. Are you with me?

So when I say that I was rooting for Matt to become the new Design Star last night, all I'm saying is that I wish he had won, not that I in any way, shape or form think Jenn is the George W. Bush of reality television. As much as I love Matt, I think (and frequently wrote) that Jenn has an amazing on-screen personality. I think she's incredibly cute, too, even though I liked her more with her headbands than the post-makeover Jenn we saw in the finale.

The two faces hairdos of Jenn

No, I like Jenn, and I think she may well have won no matter who was with her in the final two. I'll watch her show. But here's the thing: the winner was chosen not by its panel of judges but a vote by viewers. And I admit to a little worry that some of the vitriolic anti-gay crap that got spewed — and immediately removed, bless HGTV's heart — from theDesign Star message boards might indicate that the pool of voters was not entirely unaffected by the fact that Matt is gay.

I'm going to be speaking with Matt later today — we'll see what he thinks.

He probably won't tell me, but I'll also be asking him what he thinks about the fact that HGTV brought back every single one of this season's contestants except Mikey V, the tattooed cop-cum-designer who turned out to have a possible past in the gay adult film industry that no one knew about. No comment so far from HGTV about that, and Mikey hasn't responded to our interview request at this time. All I know is this: he's a good designer, has great screen appeal, and love the tattoos, dude. Come back soon, we miss you. And you can talk to me. I'm an amazingly nice person, ask anyone.

One a brighter note, Matt said in the finale that being on Design Star helped heal his rocky relationship with his family, and made him both a better designer and a better person. And when he introduced his family from the stage, sitting right between his dad and his sister was his partner, Heath (although he just introduced him by his name, and didn't identify him as his partner).

HGTV gave Matt a luxury cruise for two for getting as far as he did, and I hope he and Heath have a wonderful time — and then Matt comes back and HGTV finds some way to use him on the network after all.

Which isn't so unlikely, because one of last season's Team Gay members, fan favorite Josh "Sparkle" Johnson, is all over HGTV these days. I got a chance to talk with him not just about Matt, but about how he got to turn the tables on the Design Star judges who voted him off the show. That's right, Josh was a guest judge in a Vern Yip vs. Cynthia Rowley matchup on a new show called Summer Showdown, a reality competition between the hosts of HGTV's regular series. Josh was a real gentleman, too, and didn't hold any grudges — especially since both Vern and Cynthia staunchly denied being the ones to vote him off the show last season.

I'll have more of my interview with Josh later as well, but keep an eye out for the re-airings of the first episode of Summer Showdown ... as well as for the third episode, which is triple-gay, since one of the contestants is David Bromstad and two of the guest judges are out gay furniture design moguls Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams. Find out more info over on HGTV's website.