As I said when I recapped the first two episodes of Denise Richards & Her Wild Things, I root for Denise. That means, by default, I root for this show. I was even fairly kind in my assessment of the first hour, which didn’t come anywhere near the heights of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, the series it’s been paired with. But there are some things I can’t defend — lines that I won’t cross — and a memorial for a lizard is near the top of that list. Not since Tom Schwartz forced us to endure a poolside memorial for his lizard, Daug, during the worst-ever season of Vanderpump Rules, have I felt such despair over what I was watching. Denise has given us another lizard memorial, this time for Brooke Mueller’s longtime companion Godzilla.
The best thing I can say about the Godzilla storyline of “Drop Dead Gorgeous Lizard,” the first of two new episodes aired back-to-back, is that it at least resembles plot, which is more than can be said for anything else that happens. Following the resolution of the Sami-Lola conflict at the end of the second episode, the show seems to be scrambling for direction. We get a scene of Denise taking her eldest daughters rock climbing, which is about as dynamic as it sounds. (I did enjoy Denise bragging to the instructor about her time filming Special Forces and her disappointment when he hadn’t heard of it.) Denise tells Sami and Lola they’ll have to plan the memorial for Godzilla, because Brooke has requested it — she calls Godzilla her “little soulmate” in a flashback — and because (though this part’s unspoken) they need something to do if they’re not going to fight with each other. I appreciate Lola not wanting to tell her employer she has to miss work for a non-human memorial, even as I agree with Denise’s advice to just flub the details.
As I’m coming to learn with Denise Richards & Her Wild Things, it’s the darkness lurking under the surface that’s most compelling. I’m already over all the reminders of how totally wacky these people are. “This is not normal,” says Denise of all the pets they’ve had, “but there’s nothing normal about us or about our family.” The constant insistence on weirdness is starting to feel like the “she’s so crazzzzzzzy! Love her!” meme. Give me more of Sami and Lola not knowing if Brooke ever married their father (she did) or Denise mentioning that Godzilla was dropped off on her doorstep without warning when Brooke was being taken to rehab. I certainly don’t need this show to be an onslaught of trauma — I do believe this family has been through enough — but it has to be willing to dive into the ugly stuff sometimes if it wants to keep us invested.
It’s the show’s desire to steer clear of mess that makes Denise’s long-awaited sit-down with Erika Jayne such a disappointment. Erika is currently having a stellar season on RHOBH, and I was looking forward to the spark she could bring to this show. Unfortunately, she spends more time listening to Denise explain Godzilla’s memorial than anything else. They do also make up following their explosive fight on season 13 of RHOBH, but neither of them brings up the real root of their estrangement. “Erika and I were starting to become friends, and then from there, it went super sideways for some reason,” Denise says in a confessional. That reason, as far as I can tell, is Brandi Glanville accusing Denise of having a clandestine affair with her, culminating in a Denise takedown by Lisa Rinna. Erika may not have been the ringleader, but she was on Rinna’s side, and that’s clearly central to Denise’s feelings here — it’s why she left RHOBH! Of course, there is no way in hell Denise would ever let Brandi’s name come up on her own show, so instead we rehash the drama about Erika’s potty mouth around a much younger Sami and Lola. Erika says she felt judged, and they apologize to each other. I didn’t expect thrown glasses of Casamigos, but was it too much to hope for something a tiny bit more substantive?
At the same time, I’ll take an uneventful Denise and Erika scene over Sami and Lola going to the frame store to get a giant photo of Godzilla framed for the memorial. You can’t just take cameras along on your errands and call it a show! We do get some hints of ongoing strife between Sami and Lola, but it all seems like normal sister stuff: Sami not letting Lola use her fancy hairbrush, Sami flipping Lola off, Sami asking Lola if there are any good prayers for lizards. Okay, so it’s really mostly Sami antagonizing Lola, though she also gets very protective on Lola’s behalf when a guy who does not make Jesus the center of his life won’t stop blowing up Lola’s phone. Sami feels like she always has Lola’s back, and that Lola doesn’t do the same for her. Again, this strikes me as a completely standard sibling complaint, but I’ve been told this family is wild and crazy, so maybe I’m wrong here.
Here’s what I’ll say about the lizard memorial itself: It’s actually lovely. There is a framed photo of Godzilla along with a framed photo of Stevie Nicks (he loved Fleetwood Mac). There’s a cake made out of Fig Newtons, his favorite food. Everyone gets up to talk about their memories of Godzilla. “I really miss this little guy,” Aaron offers. “I saw him and I’m like, that guy’s really special.” While Denise is mildly bothered that her daughters didn’t get a rabbi, probably because they didn’t remember Brooke was Jewish (or their father’s third ex-wife), Lola is forced into delivering a prayer. She speaks from the heart about Brooke’s grief: “The fact that she was able to find love from Godzilla, I pray that she continues to find love flowing into her life from the Lord.” Before I spend too much time pondering whether or not Denise Richards & Her Wild Things counts as faith-based programming, we’re wrapping things up. Denise is glad she got her daughters to work together, and now thinks they can plan her funeral when she dies. Sami finds this morbid, but as Denise loves to remind us, “life is short.”
Personally speaking, “Life is short” is not something I want to hear when I’m watching a subpar reality series, though the second new episode of the show is a slight improvement. I’m probably being overly generous (or just feeling grateful about not having to sit through another lizard memorial) because there’s really not much more going on in “OnlyPans.” In fact, a huge chunk of the episode is taken up by Denise filming herself making homemade pasta with Sami and Eloise. It’s fairly disastrous, but this is all part of Denise’s audition for her own cooking show. “I just think it would be fun and something different,” she says, “being someone that is not trained at all.” While I support her in all her endeavors, I do wonder why she’s not focusing on doing a better job with the show she’s currently filming. When the pasta-making is done — without any pasta to show for it — Denise says, “This video isn’t even worth posting.” Can’t argue with that, so why did we spend several minutes watching it on TV?
But I do think this is a better episode for Denise overall. There is a great scene where we meet Eloise’s homeschool teacher, Miss Angie, and learn a little bit more about her communication skills and limitations. Eloise can say eight to ten words, though she usually whispers them, and she’s learning how to respond “yes” or “no” via text. Denise’s third daughter also finally gets to join her mom for a confessional, and you can really see what a supportive and loving mother Denise is. I appreciate how the entire segment never feels condescending — it’s respectful and compassionate, and the producers are meeting Eloise where she’s at in getting her involved in the show. Seeing this side of Denise helps me forgive a lot, including the revelation that her OnlyFans photos were briefly synced to Eloise’s iPad. Hey, nobody’s perfect.
Meanwhile, Denise is clearly struggling with what kind of example she’s set for Sami, who is enthusiastically going under the knife for a new nose after getting breast implants. She says these are surgeries she’s wanted for as long as she can remember, which is a dark thing to hear coming from a 20-year-old. Also dark: Sami revealing she’s paying to get a nose that looks more like her mother’s. In a confessional, a tearful Denise says, “I feel bad that she feels she has to live up to my nose or whatever the fuck, ’cause I don’t want them to feel they have to look a certain way.” That’s a lovely sentiment, although it’s one I wish she would express more directly to Sami — and perhaps she has! It’s clear from Sami’s insistence that Denise not come with her to the surgery, and that Lola be kept in the dark, that she sometimes keeps her family at arm’s length. On a practical level, Sami doesn’t want too many people to know about her nose job, because she told a lot of people about her implants, and they encouraged her to opt for a smaller size, which she now regrets.
Denise is, however, allowed to come with Sami to the pre-op appointment, during which Dr. Dugar explains that he’s going to do a “finesse rhinoplasty.” This sounds very chill to me until he uses the phrase, “We just filet your natural anatomy.” Denise and Sami are both visibly horrified by this, and I would like to never think about it again. I’m honestly sorry to even put it in writing. Mercifully, we don’t see Sami’s surgery at the end of the episode, but we do see her wish she had told Lola, who could have said an “85-minute long prayer” for her. (I am interested in Sami’s true feelings about Lola’s born-again Christian identity, despite the fact that the show is already becoming bogged down in Jesus talk. Lola even says, “I can do all things through Christ” while assembling a dog crate.) Regardless, Lola does find out about the nose job because Denise accidentally spills the beans at the end of the episode. Like Lola, I fail to see why this is a big deal. Wasn’t she going to find out imminently anyway? Or was Sami planning to hide until she was fully healed and then hope she could credit any facial changes to contouring?
The only other notable event in the episode (and I use the word notable loosely) is Denise’s “OnlyPans” photoshoot, where she forces Aaron to take photos of her covering her boobs with pans. “People would be like, ‘Okay, Denise Richards’s cooking show … boring,’” she says when explaining her rationale for the saucy pics. Denise being topless except for pans, on the other hand, is an attention-grabber. Listen, I love the shamelessness and the naked (no pun intended) ambition. I like when Denise admits that after making Wild Things, she was told to go in a different direction to avoid being pigeonholed as a sex symbol, and now she balances her OnlyFans with Christian and conservative movies. (I’m dying to see Angels Fallen: Warriors of Peace.) But we are four episodes into this reality show, and I feel the need to reiterate that I’d really like to see Denise focus on the task at hand. While I’m not giving up hope on Denise Richards & Her Wild Things, I can’t pretend my attention isn’t fading.