The Too Big To Fail theory asserts that certain entities are so large and so interconnected that their failure would be disastrous to the greater system, and therefore they must be supported when they face potential failure. The entity, in this case, isn't a bank or a government. It's something more important: the Real Housewives franchise. The greater system is, of course, Bravo TV.

If the Housewives go down and start hemorrhaging viewers, then the whole network might collapse. Because let's be honest, as much as we love a Winter House or a Vanderpump Rules, they're not necessarily load-bearing beams.

Prolongation and support for the Housewives franchise typically comes in the form of an exciting addition to a cast (i.e. Denise Richards) or the premiere of a new city (hello, Salt Lake City) but last week, we were introduced to two new support mechanisms.

1) An all-stars-type spinoff in the form of Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip, which is fantastic TV, but only because of the second point here, which is...
2) The destruction of the fourth wall.

Girls Trip has surprised the Bravo fanbase. Not only are the seven veteran Housewives of this inaugural season showing us sides of them we hadn’t seen in a while; but for the first time we are purposefully being allowed to peek behind the curtain.

When Girls Trip was first announced, though, many were skeptical it would be any good. They didn’t like the cast; didn’t like that it was on Peacock and not Bravo; didn’t like that it was only a week long, etc. Plus, fans were primed to see it as the beginning of the end of the franchise, since in 2016, Andy Cohen told Entertainment Tonight that they’d only do an all-stars if the franchise was “out of gas.”