“Bravo, Bravo, fucking Bravo.” When Denise Richards blurted out this line during a group dinner on the most recent season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, the fourth wall came crashing down like it never has on Real Housewives before.

Because “Fucking Bravo” isn’t like spotting a cameraman or hearing a producer during a confessional. “Fucking Bravo” communicates something angrier, something more raw, and therefore, something more real.

It says, “I would like to call ‘cut’ on this scene, bitches, and now.” It’s a compelling line and it was a compelling scene. It was also, potentially, a compelling look at the future of reality TV. And after ten seasons of the show, it was pretty unavoidable.

“We’re always looking to tell the most engaging, authentic story, and this season, we thought we needed to break the fourth wall in order to do so,” Alex Baskin, RHOBH executive producer and president of Evolution Media tells me via email. “Our thought was that if we didn’t break the fourth wall, we wouldn’t have been able to capture the real-life developments and interpersonal dynamics within the group.”

Plus, there’s precedence. Richards and her storyline may have barreled through the wall like the Kool-Aid pitcher, but even if the fourth wall wasn’t deliberately destroyed before, it’s been chipped away at. Richards’ storyline is far from the first time a Real Housewives show has given us a peek behind the curtain.