In Sweetbitter’s two-part season-two premiere, which aired last night, restaurant manager Howard (Paul Sparks) gives a startling declaration to Jake (Tom Sturridge), a bartender infamous for his liaisons with female coworkers: The employee handbook is being changed so that all staff members must disclose romantic relationships with coworkers.

“You want to know who I’m fucking?” Jake fires back, smirking.

This sudden push to create a “safe and professional work environment” is hypocritical for Howard: Last season his disastrous affair with the restaurant’s young hostess came to a disturbing conclusion in the middle of a busy dinner service. But it's another way Sweetbitter continues to navigate the murky, often inappropriate relationships that can take place among restaurant staff.

Macall Polay/STARZ

Despite its distinct soap opera quality, the series has never been shy about taking jabs at the hazards of the service industry: Howard's predatory and patronizing attitude toward our protagonist Tess (now a newly promoted waitress) and the messy on-again, off-again relationship between her and Jake are constant sources of conflict. In both situations, the men hold the power. Binge-drinking and drug use are also widespread among the employees, and long hours working in close quarters lead to unhealthy, codependent relationships. The takeaway: A vulnerable woman trying to establish herself in a fast-paced kitchen faces peril at every turn.

This season the show is doubling down on the message that restaurants can be dangerous places for women (and immigrants, and people of color) to work. In the wake of ongoing allegations that abuse and assault plague the hidden rooms of restaurants, Howard’s change of heart stands out—one that would be conspicuously missing if it wasn’t addressed at all.

To be clear: Tess is not a victim. In the early days of season one, she was naive. Now she recognizes what makes her job treacherous—and still fully embraces restaurant work. In season two’s first few episodes, Tess seems determined to embark on a one-woman mission to improve her coworkers’ lives by enforcing her own policies of support and communication. She helps a beleaguered coworker and urges him to take more breaks; she de-escalates an argument between a server and dishwasher over a part of lost, possibly stolen, sneakers. It sets up the show to interrogate what causes toxic restaurant culture and what it might take to change it.

“I was talked down to, spit at, shamed, and made to feel ‘less than’ for no other reason than my job.”

It's an admirable mission, but some women who have worked as servers themselves feel the show doesn’t grasp the full scope of harassment that can exist in restaurants, or that it's equipped to handle sensitive topics like sexual harassment in a truly nuanced way.

“[I think] Sweetbitter can’t tell the difference between making a joke about how a piece of ginger looks phallic and blatant racism and sexual harassment,” says Sophie,* 29. She has worked as a barista, a waitress, and a bartender over the years and has, along with the other women interviewed here, watched the first season of the show.