They also point to a moment from RHoNJ, in which Teresa buys furniture and pulls out cash, saying, “I hear the economy’s crashing, so that’s why I pay cash.”

Like so much of Bravo’s programming for “affluencers” (their term), the economy ultimately makes the series even more enticing to audiences who are tuning in to gape and roll eyes and interpret the Bravo wink at the audience. In fact, Bravo’s Andy Cohen told the NYT, “That wink is also something that allows a lot of people to feel like it’s OK to watch these women.”

What’s interesting to me, in an aside, is how The Office has used the same technique: its sixth season has engaged with an extensive financial crisis at Dunder Mifflin, and while the show has suggested that this is at least partially the result of mismanagement, it nonetheless feels like a reflection of what a small paper company would be dealing with in the “real world.” We know that Dunder Mifflin doesn’t exist, just as we know that the Housewives are living lives driven by producers as much as by their own hopes and dreams, but signs that our world is starting to influence their own offer another way for viewers to connect with the series, or a way to keep them from disconnecting due to the growing gap between the two realities.