Denise Richards: It’s Complicated (No Jacket Required)
Denise considers posing for Playboy, while everybody tries to talk her out of it; Denise prepares for her meeting with Joel Silver; Denise gets her father a makeover, before they attend a red carpet event.
Denise is getting spray-tanned in her shower. “It’s nice and warm today!” she exclaims, presumably about the tanning fluid. “So you going dark-dark?” asks the faceless spray tanner as we see a side-view of Denise’s butt with a weird blurred out area that intersects with the tanners elbow. “I look like a fat-ass.” Denise complains, slightly arching her back for the cameras to better display her perfectly formed posterior. I expect spray tanners are pretty much contractually obligated to be synchophantic and supportive about people’s bodies whether or not they’re on camera, so of course the tanner insists that Denise looks good and asks if she’s been doing Pilates. Denise says that she has, but not as much as she should be, because she’s just so busy with the “girls and stuff.” The spray tanner coos some more supportive things at her. They’re like hairdressers in that way, I guess.
Denise says “This hot body’s made me a few millions, with these [bleep].” I seriously cannot quite figure what that bleep is supposed to be obscuring. There are quite a few options, but I’m going to go with “labial flaps”.
Denise throws her head back and laughs evily, further cementing my dislike for her.
Credits. It’s kind of amazing that a show that was supposed to make the average person like Denise has actually, at least for me, taken someone I didn’t feel particularly strongly about and made me despise her. Denise Richards: It Backfired. Good work Seacrest productions!
Shots of fancy LA. Denise enters a tony tea room in an attractive deep orange dress to meet her agent, Chuck “Hot Lips” James. His face stretches into a grimace of pleasure when he sees her.
“You know, Playboy’s been hounding us again…” Chuck tells her. “And you got the offer, to do another cover.”
“Really? Oh cool.” says Denise. “After two kids!” Yes, Denise, we get it. You have a nice body.
They have this kind of blatant conversation about how doing Playboy won’t “hurt” her and whether or not it will “help” her. I guess they’re talking about her career but conversations like this depress me a little. I mean, what’s the goal here? Obviously Denise is pretty talentless as an actress, but a lot of people have done more with less. But it’s not like she’s got this burning desire to “create” that motivates her to do other things to pay the bills. I mean, I guess she just wants to be really famous, for something besides her divorce. And really, really rich for no reason. Because what would be the point, otherwise? Sheen’ll foot the bill for the kid’s college.
Chuck’s enormous mouth flaps as he asks if she’s “comfortable” doing it. “I’ve learned to just embrace it and be who I am and I’ve made a lot of money with my boobs.” she answers. We see a quick succession of naked Denise pics, naughty bits obscured by dollar signs while a cash register cha-chings. Klassy.
Chuck also reveals that he spoke to the producer, Joel Silver. “Yeah and you know, he loves you and we’re gonna set up for you to meet him.” Denise is excited because she wants legitimate producer Joel Silver to advise her on her career. I could make a whole lot of crass jokes here about what exactly it is that Joel Silver “loves” about her and how “meeting” him could help her career but I’m going to restrain myself except for referring to Chuck James as “Pimp Lips” from here on out.
Denise is “so excited” to meet Joel Silver and wants his advice about her image and her career. She tells Pimp Lips that “her publicist” (who apparently he does not know by name) called and told her that she got the offer to do the cover of Shape magazine. Pimp Lips proves his worth as a career advisor when he points out that posing for Shape is obviously different than posing for Playboy. “Clothes, no clothes” he says wisely. Then he tells her that she should ask her Dad what he thinks.
“I know what he’s going to say,” says Denise “but he’ll get over it if I decide to do it.” Why ask him if you know he won’t like it and you’re going to do it anyway?
Denise rides in her SUV and calls her Dad and tells him she got an offer. “You mean an offer like a movie or something?” Irv asks hopefully. Poor, deluded Irv all thinking that Denise still fields movie offers. That’s cute. He probably wants her to make more money so she can hire someone to clean up after those damn dogs. “Not quite.” lies Denise. Predictably enough, he’s not happy about the idea of her doing Playboy. “Gosh.” He says. “Oh boy.”
More advice-seeking from “I’m just gonna do whatever I want anyway” Denise as she sits in her kitchen with Sister Michelle. Michelle pulls a face at the notion of Denise doing Playboy again, and says “I don’t know. I kind of think you shouldn’t.” Why? Denise asks. “If you were possibly wanting to change your image somewhat this is not the way to go.” says Michelle. A decent point, but hearing so much about Denise’s image and how she wants to change it when she has apparently agreed to this insult of a show grates on me. I mean, if you’re going to be that blatantly manipulative about your image, at least be good at it.
Denise doesn’t see the downside of doing Playboy again since she’s already done it and everyone has already seen her naked. Which isn’t really the point. The point is not whether or not people have seen you naked but rather whether or not people think you are the kind of person, or at the point in your life, where you will take your clothes off for money. Everybody’s seen Jenny McCarthy naked too, but now they just think of her when they want to freak themselves out about immunizing their kids. (Thanks Jenny!)
“And then I have to cancel my subscription again!” whines Irv which, much as I like Irv, is a little gross.
Denise and her father are in the backyard picking up dog poop with a large shovel and a small rake. No really, that’s what takes place during this conversation. Poop scooping. Little, adorable, stupid pure-bred dogs run around pooping in the yard. Oh, and there’s that pig again, sniffing one of the dogs in a sexually suggestive manner.
Denise tells her dad that she has a red carpet event to go to for a cancer research charity. “I lost my mom to cancer late last year.” she tells us over still shots of her with her mom. Her mom was kind of pretty. “It’s been so devastating on my entire family.” she says, ungrammatically. She definitely wants to support cancer research she tells us. She also definitely wants to attend as many red carpet events as possible and isn’t invited to the really important ones anymore since she’s no longer married to Charlie (she doesn’t tell us.)
Her dad asks her who she’s going to go with and she says she wants to go with him. He’s sitting on a swing on the girls swing set looking cute and awkward. “No, you’re not gonna take me,” he says “Take somebody good-looking and young and someone that dresses really nice and someone that’s in their element.” Presumably such a person would also have to want to be seen in public with Denise Richards, which Irv clearly does not. “I’m out of my element.” he says. I think what I like about Irv is that in spite of being Denise’s dad, in spite of being on this show, he just never manages to come off like he’s whoring himself out for the cameras. I don’t quite know how he pulls it off, but he does. Maybe it’s because he seems vaguely embarrassed, but eternally game, all the time.
Denise insists that she’ll get him something to wear so that he’ll look amazing and feel comfortable. She thinks it’s important for her Dad to go to this event with her. He’ll think about it. She says he’s going. “I’m dateless, you’re my date.” she says and laughs hollowly.
There’s a random shot of horses as we return to the Richard’s ranch. Do they have horses or are those someone else’s?
Denise’s friend Trish arrives. Denise wants her help picking something to wear. Denise is holding one of her dogs in one hand, sort of by the neck. He struggles futilely. “I want to look…” “conservative.” interrupts Trish. “Appropriate for having my Dad as my date.” finishes Denise. The implication here seems to be that Denise dresses like a street walker on purpose sometimes.
They flip through a row of hangers on a clothes rack. The clothes on the rack actually mostly look like tops and skirts and day dresses to me. Like some PA just grabbed a bunch of clothes and stuck them on a rack. Details like that irk me.
As they pretend to look through clothes Denise tells Trish that she got another offer to do Playboy. “Okay: no.” says Trish. “That’s easy.” It’s actually pretty funny when she says it.
“Why nooooot?” whines Denise. “You’ve already done it.” says Trish. “You just played like, two porn stars, didn’t you? Like back to back.” she adds, sending me off to imdb.com. I guess she must be talking about the character “Autumn Bliss” in some film called Deep in the Valley that looks awful and also stars Kim Kardashian and some other character named “Bliss” in a movie called Finding Bliss that is definitely about the porn industry. Wow, Denise’s imdb.com entry is looking pretty bleak lately. And the ” Bliss” thing is just weird. It makes think like maybe these are the sorts of movies where you just get to make up your own character name because no one ever actually calls your character by name so it doesn’t matter. Like porn.
Trish decides to demonstrate to Denise why she can’t do Playboy by doing “an internet search” on her name. Like that’s not what happens all the time in that house anyway.
The image search results are blurred, presumably because they’re all involve nudity. Do a similar search and you’ll see what I mean. Don’t do it at work though. Trish kind of rocks in this segment because she totally picks on Denise, which can’t happen enough for my taste. The only thing that would make it better would be if Denise got really mad, but she just laughs it off ,unfortunately.
“Oh here you are!” Trish says brightly “Straddling the beach! What are you wearing in this? Seaweed?” she snarks. We see a blurred out shot of Denise doing a pelvic thrust in the water from her Playboy pictorial.
“That looks classy and good.” giggles Denise. “Who’s on the beach like this?” asks Trish, bending back in imitation.
“Here’s Denise straddling some man in a bed.” I’m not sure I know that one. “Here’s Denise making out with another woman.” Well, everyone knows that one. Wow, no wonder Old Blond Friend Kim is promoted to “Best Friend” by the end of the series. Trish is kind of mouthy.
“She has nice lips. We had a good time.” says Denise. “I see that.” says Trish drily.
“Oh this should be good, Denise Richards on Mr. Skin.com.” Trish really knows her way around the softcore internet. She makes the point that this sort of thing is Denise’s image. Well, Denise’s image lately is more vindictive ex-wife. But also this.
For no real reason at all, they show us a few clips of Denise and Neve Campbell kissing . Trish claims the clip has “four stars in the hall of fame of nudity.” Denise just needs to accept that his questionable moment was probably her finest hour career-wise. It’s all downhill from there.
Irv calls up the stairs that Chuck’s on the phone. For once, he’s not holding one of the dogs. Denise goes into her office to have one of those shouty speakerphone calls shows like this are always doing. Pimp Lips has set up a meeting with Joel Silver who has apparently been “a fan” for a long time. I don’t think it’s coincidence that we hear this immediately after seeing a clip from Wild Things. He suggests that she dress down for the meeting and advises that she “Just make it sort of about everything else Denise Richards “ I find Chuck kind of vague.
“Thanks Chuck. I’m excited.” says Denise woodenly.
She rejoins Trish and tells her about the meeting and that she has to dress “really down. Nothing sexy. Tone down my look.”
“We should go shopping.” says Trish. If Denise has nothing in her closet that can possibly be appropriate for this meeting, she really does need What Not to Wear. “Plus it’ll be fun for you to wear a new outfit. It’s a whole new chapter in your life.” I think that’s taking this a bit far.
Trish suggests that she bring “Classy Kim.” We see a fair bit of Kim throughout the series and she is many things, including funny, but classy I’m not so sure about. Denise might have more luck with “Miyoko stripper pole expert”.
We’re given a brief intro to Kim. “Adorable, perky and crazy and we’re like sisters.”
A store is product-placed and they shop. Various outfits are tried on. Comedy is made of Denise’s desire to have everything unzipped or unbuttoned. We try to believe the fiction that the final outfit decision is reached without a stylist, but simply from the helpful chatter of two friends. The outfit they decide on is really cute and flattering , a wide lapelled yellow print silk shirt with a fitted cashmere-looking navy blue sweater over it and chinos. Actually, when she checks out it seems like the shirt collar is actually a dickey. That’s weird, but it’s definitely still cute.
It’s the next day. Denise is going to give her father a “more updated look” for the red carpet event she’s taking him to. Now she’s taking Irv to a product placed spa. “You know how I feel about all this Hollywood stuff.” he grumbles endearingly as they walk in. Denise is “so excited” to take her father to a spa. He’s never been to a spa, which she finds hard to believe. I don’t.
“I’m really feeling weird about this already.” gripes Irv as the spa ladies greet them. They shake hands and Irv comments that the spa lady has a strong grip. “I gotta tell ya I’m really weird about this stuff. I don’t like people touching me. ” he lies.
“He’s never had a massage.” says Denise. “Except when he was in Vietnam and he said that was a different kind of massage.” We’re given a shot of the other woman there, who happens to look like she could be Asian. She looks annoyed. Irv doesn’t look nearly as embarrassed as he should. The first spa lady laughs it off and says that he’s in good hands.
This gets kind of icky as Irv undergoes a spa treatment that looks like he’s being covered in brown sugar. That would be okay, but he keeps moaning things like “Oh god!” that make it seem like he’s having the other kind of massage. “It feels like you’re rubbing me down with 120 grit sandpaper.” he sighs. “Pretty decadent treatment.” agrees the spa lady. Ew.
At the end of it the woman holds her hands together all Namaste-like and bows and says “It’s always a privilege and honor to do the body work.” “Wow, that was weird.” remarks Irv. I’m kind of with him on that.
Denise decides to put on her new outfit and show her sister. Michelle is sitting in living room feeding her baby and looking really pretty. She laughs when Denise enters and says “What are you wearing?” When Denise asks if she likes it she says “it’s different.” and laughs at her some more. Denise should pay more attention to how ridiculous all these people who supposedly love her think she is most of the time.
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