But just as “Trans-form This Trans-man” has its problems, “Sky’s the Limit” has its own. The episode begins with the Fab Five watching video of Skyler’s top surgery with shocked expressions; “this is his top surgery,” murmurs Karamo, stating the seemingly obvious. This scene is deeply uncomfortable in numerous ways: besides the audio-visual “othering” of Skyler (separating him from every other man on the show by making his introduction so different while also reinforcing the medicalization of transness in pop culture), Skyler later appears unaware that the Five were allowed to watch his surgery video, remarking with some surprise that “you got to watch that?” This raises questions about the show’s already dubious policy on consent. (In the season one episode “Saving Sasquatch,” the quintet repeatedly force their subject into hugs, supposedly to drag him out of his shell.)

And then there’s the matter of Bobby. As the show’s interior designer, Bobby always has a lot of work to do, but in “Sky’s the Limit,” he seems to reduce his job to policing Skyler’s expression of queerness in his life. For a 30-year-old trans drag king, dressing like a skate punk and hanging up rainbow flags and a massive collection of flat-brim hats on his bedroom wall may be an expression of the boyhood he was never allowed to have. But Bobby seems affronted, chiding Skyler that “hats are great on the head, but not on the wall” and preventing him from buying a rainbow trash can because “[q]ueer is a pillar in the house of Skyler — not a trash can, not wall art.” After replacing Skyler’s high-frame bed with a slick leather mattress, Bobby hypes the reveal, asking “are you ready for what an adult man’s bed looks like?” Karamo gets in on the action too, commenting in an interview segment that Skyler’s house “reminds me of somebody who is in their early 20s and everything is about being part of the queer community.”

Just beneath Bobby and Karamo’s supportive words lie judgment: they’ll help Skyler, but on the condition that they get to teach him to be respectably queer. “The original show was about tolerance,” notes Tan in the show’s first trailer. “Our fight is for acceptance.” But the difference between “acceptance” and assimilation is a narrow one, and in their condemnation of “over the top” expressions of queer identity, the Queer Eye hosts seem to err on the side of the latter.

To be frank, this shouldn’t be that surprising; at its core, Queer Eye is a show about well-heeled cis gay men dishing out corporate-funded makeovers and redecoration that many of their subjects could never afford on their own. This most emphatically includes Skyler, who was forced to raise $8,000 from his community for top surgery and needs at least $100,000 more to deal with complications — a problem the show discards immediately after acknowledging it, preferring instead to shame Skyler and his roommates for keeping a “cat pee couch.” (One might suspect they didn’t have enough money to replace it.) Naturally, the original show was much worse in this regard, as the hosts spent the last half of each episode rattling off merchandise sponsorships like they were on the Home Shopping Network. But just because the reboot is more subtle in its capitalist propaganda doesn’t mean it’s good.

Representing the best and worst of Queer Eye is Tan, whose ignorance is matched only by his desire to learn. Tan doesn’t make a great first impression in “Sky’s the Limit,” musing constantly that he’s “never met a trans person” and seemingly oblivious to the likelihood he has met a trans person — just not one that outed themself to him. His “personal note” that Skyler’s clothes are “wack” are damaging for the same reasons Bobby’s and Karamo’s judgment hurt: You met Skyler on the second day of his entire life he can wear a tank top without worrying, Tan, can you let him live? But as we learn later in the episode, Tan’s issues run much deeper than they seem at first blush: because he himself was obsessed with assimilating for most of his adult life, Tan has nothing like the connection Skyler has with his community. “I have hidden myself away for so many years,” reflects Tan in an interview segment. “I’ve hidden myself away to make sure that people are more comfortable, and I so wish I had a little bit more of what Skyler has.”