If there's one thing that SVU does consistently, it's dealing with trans issues indelicately, and this week's installment--the first under Rick Eid's guidance--is no exception. Season 18's Broken Rhymes has the unit dealing with trans bathroom usage in a way that isn't even remotely close to the law being discussed. Of course, this one also sets our trans victim--who is on life support by the cold open and not given much in the way of agency or depth--against the world of hip-hop, bringing in Wyclef Jean to, well, not do much. This wouldn't be a trans-focused SVU ep without homophobic and transphobic epithets being slung or the paint-by-numbers conversation amongst the members of the unit explaining trans people to Middle America, so steel yourself for that.

After three straight episodes spent in Season 24, the Munchie Boys get weird with the prehistoric SECOND EPISODE of Law & Order: Sex Crimes--er, Special Victims Unit. Adhering to the old TV trope that the second episode is basically a second pass at a pilot, this one hits a lot of the same beats that we saw all the way back in Episode 1. Just like the rest of the first season, the salacious and disgusting is cranked up, the darkness is unavoidable, and the Stabler family is prominently featured, though this one prominently features Elliot and Kathy in their underwear, selling sex marital-style.

Alt-title: Dickie’s Turtle Getting Cannibal Holocausted.

Sit back, and try to imagine an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit where Olivia Benson, be she Detective or Sergeant or Lieutenant or Captain, finds herself held captive in a hostage situation. Go ahead. Any scenario that could land her in the middle of a standoff with just her wits (and SWAT standing by) to get her out of the situation.

Now, in that hypothetical situation you concocted in your head, things happened to get her there, right? Well, "Townhouse Incident" presupposes a scenario wherein Liv finds herself in a hostage situation in MINUTE TWO.

Yes, you read that right. The 2:12 mark, in fact. In a show where the first 0:21 is taken up by the intro and title card.

This was our Vietnam.

In Season 15, the SVU writers room decided to revisit the subject matter of the Season 12 All-Timer "Possessed," wondering what it would be like without a Bud the Ninja Pedo gleefully pawing at pics of younger incarnations of their vics or other pedos defending themselves at trial by using the "of course my ejack was all over this pornographic physical media" defense. Well, the result here is harrowing. And, like, obviously, it probably should be. Yeah, it should be. But when it's played this straight, uhhhh, it's tough. It's also a pretty good platform for eventual White Lotus guest Meghann Fahy to strut her stuff.

The Randomizer decided that everyone needed to wallow in the darkness of the William Lewis Saga again, this time starting at the beginning with “Her Negotiation,” the season finale of Season 14 complete with cliffhanger leaving our hero Olivia Benson in a very dark place. This obviously means the Munchie Boys have to deal with fur-humping, Plein Air Painters, the life's work of Frederick Law Olmstead, and the shooting star that was Matt Harvey's early baseball career. Oh, and a pastiche serial killer drawing from some of the darkest imaginable sources.

Because Father's Day now lasts an entire week, the Randomizer gifted us with another standout bad dads episode of Law & Order: SVU ("Clock" S8E2), wherein a young, but not criminally young, girl with mosaic Turner's Syndrome concocts an elaborate scheme to run away from her Canada curious father and into the arms of her proto-pedo lover. Of course we have plenty to talk about including abhorrent British comedy troupes and Yankees games from the early mid-Aughts. Munch Away!

Look, we don't expect Season 1 episodes of SVU to get all the details exactly right, but in "Chat Room" (S1E18) the show gets the basics of the internet so gloriously wrong that it actually conjures many, many things into existence that didn't exist yet. Catfishing? Yeah, SVU invented that. Revenge porn? That too, sadly. Bitcoin, ffs?! Yes, Dickwolf is/was/will be Satoshi Nakamoto. Along the way to all these discoveries, we learn that SVU is a baseball show, that there is no wiggle room on chicken, and discerning listeners will be enchanted by Josh's deliriously deep dive on celebrity ocelots. Folks, we always recommend that you watch the episode in question before you listen, but this time we mean it. Enjoy!

The cliffhanging Season 13 Finale “Rhodium Nights” is an episode that belongs in the pantheon of SVU entries, featuring what has to be the most memorable ending in the entire series. This wild ride takes us down a slew of odd paths, including discoveries of Rollins’s economic beliefs, explorations into load volume, lamenting meddlesome US foreign policy, and travel recommendations for border towns. There’s TONS to talk about in this one, which is a truly shocking installment of television.