Denise Richards & Her Wild Things Recap: Still Not a Cooking Show

I’ve heard your feedback — I am being too hard on Denise Richards & Her Wild Things. The reality is that I criticize because I care. As I’ve said from the jump, I’m a longtime Denise Richards fan, and I’d love for her to find her place on Bravo again. I am just not convinced this show is the answer. And frankly, neither is Denise, who spends another episode auditioning for a theoretical cooking show. I’m trying to meet this series where it’s at, letting its gentle rhythms wash over me like that vibrating wand Denise rubs all over her face and (once cameras are down) Aaron’s balls. But while I did enjoy this installment more than last week’s lizard memorial, I still can’t deny that it’s falling short.

Denise herself is certainly trying! She’s being candid about her yearly Botox. She’s extolling the virtues of salmon sperm facials. (They inject what they extract from the salmon sperm into your skin instead of whatever you’re imagining, which is probably much worse.) But mostly, she’s fixated on this non-existent cooking show. We learn that when she posted one of her semi-disastrous videos, she got a comment from Brooke Williamson, former Top Chef winner and current Food Network mainstay. Denise is thrilled that Brooke is looking to collab, even though the comment in question (“Let’s do this together next time… I’m here for you”) feels a little shady. “I really want to get my own cooking show,” Denise reiterates, and by now, I’m wondering if they can’t just subtly shift Denise Richards & Her Wild Things to a new format. Denise Richards & Her Wild… Recipes? Just spitballing here.

Denise, Lola, and Eloise head over to Sami’s for a post-surgery visit. Sami has already posted a TikTok about her nose job, so I’m not sure what the point of keeping Lola in the dark was. (The TikTok itself has bad vibes, particularly the part where Sami says, “That’s one thing I love about the bruising, is that it makes my eyes pop.”) Denise is in full producer mode, trying to prod Lola into saying she feels hurt that Sami tried to keep her nose job a secret from her. But Lola doesn’t care about that — she’s too focused on the blue tank top that Sami allegedly stole from her ages ago. “This tank top is just so special to me,” Lola explains, and I’m trying to take it seriously, but it seems like a bigger deal that Sami refuses to let her sister come up to her apartment. She says that while they’ve made up, she’s still not comfortable having Lola at her place. That puts Denise in the uncomfortable position of having to be the one to ask Sami to return the tank top. Sami claims to not know what Lola is talking about, but she also references all the clothing Lola has stolen from Sami’s closet, which feels less like a denial to me.

The first of this week’s special guest stars is Kathy Hilton, who Denise meets for a meal — it’s a logical choice for a fake spinoff of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Denise first met Kathy because Charlie Sheen once bought a house next to Paris Hilton and had Denise and the kids move in after his goddesses moved out. (Remember the goddesses?) As with the Erika Jayne meet-up in the last episode, there’s not a lot of substance to this scene, though it’s always nice to spend time with Kathy, especially after she’s had a “country club pour” of Chardonnay. Once more, however, I found myself desperate to delve a little deeper. Denise talks about how wild Sami was as a teenager, and Kathy can relate given what she went through with Paris. “She was totally out of control,” Kathy says. “Now I couldn’t be prouder. Look what she’s done with her life.” Again, we are glossing over an awful lot of trauma, and while Paris’ story is not something this particular show needs to explore, the careful avoidance does reflect a larger trend. I appreciate the tone producers are going for — Denise Richards & Her Wild Things is obviously meant to be lighthearted, laundry-folding entertainment — but these constant reminders that there’s something bigger and darker under the surface make me wish we could break through.

In the meantime, we have our next special guest star to meet, and it’s Brooke Williamson herself. She and Denise are filming a cooking segment at the home of Denise’s social media manager, Justen. (She must be paying him well because he has a gorgeous kitchen.) Denise reveals that she doesn’t really get starstruck around mega-famous people — her example is working with Dame Judi Dench her first day of filming The World Is Not Enough, and I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that interaction — but she’s genuinely overwhelmed by Brooke’s presence. When Aaron shows up, Denise shares that Brooke is his hall pass, and no one seems more surprised by this than Aaron. I do think she’s fully making it up, maybe to add a little more spice to the scene, but Brooke at least appears flattered. The whole thing is essentially an ad for Brooke’s cookbook since she has Denise follow a recipe with minimal assistance and, of course, a backdoor pilot for Denise’s cooking show. Brooke says she can’t imagine anyone not wanting to watch that — Food Network, are you listening?

The episode ends with Denise and Sami taking a trip back to Dr. Dugar’s office so that Sami can get the bandage off and see her new nose in all its glory. Look, it’s a good nose, but like Denise, I thought it was a good nose to begin with. I don’t really see much of a difference, so I’ll just have to take Sami’s word for it that “this is like the best day of my life.” Denise’s most likable modes are when she’s fully in her own world communing with squirrels and when she’s being a supportive mom, and here it’s definitely the latter. She even gets emotional seeing how happy Sami is, and I’m glad that we balance that with a confessional where she says, “It’s so hard as a mom because I definitely don’t think Sami knows how other people see her and how beautiful she is.” There’s nothing particularly wild or crazy about this final scene, but it does feel more authentic than the show insisting on the zaniness. At this point, I’ll take more grounded family moments over incessant cooking show pitches, no matter how good those figs looked.