Only evil Kelly has signed on for Season 3 so far, but I don't think we need to be worried about the rest of them. Bethenny desperately needs the publicity to promote her many business ventures, Alex and Simon aren't capable of turning down a chance to be in front of a camera -- they'd do this show for free if it came to that -- and Ramona needs a place to unleash the crazy. Seriously though, they need to pay Ramona whatever she's asking. She's the only housewife in Real Housewives history who is actually irreplaceable. The only one I'm concerned about is LuAnn. She might not need the money, and I doubt she's eager to go through the humiliation of her divorce so publicly all season, considering all she did for the first two was pretend so fervently that she had a perfect marriage. But still -- losing LuAnn wouldn't devastate me nearly as much as losing Ramona or Simon, condescending etiquette monster that she is.

And if they only got paid $10,000 for the first season, you kind of have to wonder what they made for the second. Obviously, as people get more and more famous it becomes more and more expensive to sustain that -- publicists, business managers, assistants, etc. don't work for camera time (or hugs, Dina. You idiot.) like the housewives themselves do. And if they are indeed now the cash cow of the network, shouldn't they -- like movie stars -- be paid in accordance with how much they bring in? On the other hand, Jill Zarin wants hundreds of thousands of dollars to be mean to Ramona for 13 hours a year?! Oy. To the guillotine, all of them.

Thoughts? Which NY housewife could you not live without? Simon counts!