How the Housewives Inspired 'The Comeback'

The Comeback, Lisa Kudrow's biting sitcom about washed-up celebrity Valerie Cherish, just might have been ahead of its time. The show lasted only one season when it premiered in 2005, but now the acclaimed series is ready for its encore. After nine years off the air, the second season will be premiering on HBO on Sunday…and Real Housewives plays a crucial role in the plot!

The very first episode of The Comeback includes cameos from none other than Andy Cohen and Lisa Vanderpump as Valerie Cherish makes an appearance on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills…and then pitches her own show to Bravo. This means that the two Lisas got to act opposite each other, something Lisa V. admitted to E! made her a little nervous. "I was in free-fall, but then [Lisa Kudrow] kind of carried me...I saw the script and I said, ‘OK, I'm good to go. I'm safe here.'"

But the Real Housewives franchise, and its groundbreaking reality TV format, had even more to do with getting The Comeback back on the air according to creator Michael Patrick King. "[Maybe] everybody's more comfortable with humiliation everywhere," King tells E! about the warm critical reception the second season of his show has already been getting. "The world is much more broken glass than it was nine years ago. People have seen some very dark stuff on TV. So the fact that real reality TV…has gotten so aggressively painful that families are splitting up and going to jail, it's easier to watch Valerie. She feels sane."

Make sure to catch Lisa Vanderpump and Andy on The Comeback this Sunday at 10 PM on HBO.

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[Sources: E!, E!]