Episode 213: He’s a Senile Train Perv (S14E8 Lessons Learned)
SVU takes on the tony world of upper-crust prep schools, which would often be quite the turn-off for the Munchie Boys, but an episode that could otherwise have fallen into any number of traps is buoyed by fantastic performances from some heavy hitters. The gloves come off and whoever had it in for prep schools in the Season 14 writers room lucked out and got Charles Grodin, Elliott Gould, Anthony Rapp, and Buck Henry to come in and knock it out of the park in a story focused on an institution that didn't just fail its charges--it serially and systemically sexually abused them.
Episode 155: King Sebastian and the Manual Release (S14E7 Vanity’s Bonfire)
You'd think that an SVU centered around Scott Bakula tricking his mistress into putting their love child up for adoption would lend itself to hours of Quantum Leap conversation wondering just how Ziggy and Al let this whole situation get this out of hand, and that definitely happens, but so does a dive into a pretty heinous guest star, who lived through some gnarly trauma and then doled out plenty herself.
Just as important though, this episode emphatically chides parents who have the temerity to try to parent AND use their cell phones at the same time, and makes you wonder how more parents aren't clocking clear pedos at the park. If you ever wanted to know how to artificially inseminate your significant other in the comfort of your own home, Adam tries to tell you while Josh derails the conversation. And both Adam and Josh cry during this episode for very different reasons.
Episode 131: Any Teenager Getting off a Bus at the Port Authority Is Going to Get Turned out (S13E10 Spiraling Down)
Why do any non-New Yorkers even bother coming to the big city? They're just gonna get turned out within minutes. Of course, that might give them the chance to service a john of Broadway Joe's caliber. This one does quite the about-face halfway through, making the wild left turn from teens being forced into prostitution fresh off the bus at the Port Authority into a dive into the unending effects of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and how it’s downing our sports idols. Obviously it was going to end up there, right? This is SVU, after all.
Episode 114: Rollins Was About to Take a Tumble in the Back of a Hearse (S14E10 Presumed Guilty)
Sure, the bulk of this episode is a fairly by-the-numbers which-priest-was-the-pedo-and-which-was-merely-libidinous tale, but for a few delicious moments, we get to pull back the curtains and see what the Medical Examiner's office in the SVUniverse does on the rare night they let their hair down. This is a holiday party for the ages folks. It is the party that launched a thousand fan fiction stories. We also speculate on what Amaro and Rollins have, or have not, going on on Christmas Eve, among many other fun digressions.
Episode 109: Not Buffalonian, Ruffalonian (S15E16 Gridiron Soldier)
Loganville, Georgia comes to New York City as Rollins spearheads the investigation into a hot-shot college football recruit who comes to visit Hudson University. Of course, Hudson University does its thing, and her hometown hero is left irrevocably changed for the worse. We also dig a bit into Danny Pino and Kelli Giddish's pasts, explore the nature of Rollins's betting proclivities, and talk a little bit about Michael Sam.
Episode 107: You Take Your Pension and Open up a Jet Ski Dealership (S15E2 Imprisoned Lives)
Well, we've got ourselves another Mo-Mo incident in Times Square... Needlessly picking up right from the smoldering wreckage of Liv freeing herself from her captor William Lewis, we get a stark ripped-from-the-headlines episode delving into the infamous Ariel Castro case. Kidnapping victims are held in cages in the basement and raped for decades, and Liv's PTSD is still very real. This episode dwells in darkness.
Episode 106: She’s Summoning the Monolith (S15E1 Surrender Benson)
When last week's episode ended with Olivia Benson being taken captive by über-psychopath William Lewis, we knew that we'd be going deep into the darkest hour of SVU's storied run this week. This is 43 full minutes of torture porn so bleak and visceral that it's honestly shocking it aired on network television. Please prepare yourself for how messed up this episode is. Thankfully, Josh and Adam munch it up by talking about a diverse range of European arthouse classics you wouldn't want to bring a date to, our coffeeshop orders, and whether or not Pizza Man exists within the Fur Humper Cinematic Universe. Oh, and lest we forget, Adam has an outlandishly bold theory which just might change the way you look at Olivia Benson forever. Enjoy!
Episode 105: Oh, They’ll Sexualize Anyone in a Really Terrible Way (S14E24 Her Negotiation)
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.
Episode 103: You Gotta Give People Some Cold Cucumber Water While You Rub Their Joint Down (S14E22 Poisoned Motive)
This week, The Munchie Boys tackle a Finisode preoccupied with unpacking Fin's history while an undercover with Narcotics, more than a decade after the fact. Rollins gets improbably shot, which leads to an unhealthy dose of police brutallity and metaphorical prison rape threats, but that's not nearly as shocking as some truly disturbing home-decor-driven revelations upon meeting a seemingly normal family with a secret left unspoken.
Episode 94: Do Buffalonians Dream of Erotic Meats? (S13E5 Missing Pieces)
This week, the world's largest airline ensured that this episode could not be released on time. To all of the listeners whose Monday mornings were tragically impacted by this unfortunate event, we at Munch My Benson are truly sorry.
Sadly, the writing staff of Season 13 of SVU was absolutely unapologetic in thoroughly trashing the second largest city in the state that SVU calls home. We've seen this show look askance at lesser states and provinces across the continent, but the glee with which this episode implies that Buffalonians will stop at nothing to ensure that their own children grow up in unsafe homes is truly shocking. Josh and Adam, of course, talk early childhood education, examine the films of Satyajit Ray and Michael Cimino, describe bottomless brunches and lil' squeezers, and plumb the depths of Rollins's depraved backstory. Enjoy!
Episode 93: They Still Manage to Wedge in Some Racism, but It’s a Little Too Professional (S13E6 True Believers)
After kicking things off with Adam’s tales of neglected hot tub maintenance, the Munchie Boys step into the world of early Season 13 where a new writing staff ventures off into a Stabler-less world. Where some episodes may not be as boldly helmed and written, this is a fantastically directed, process-concerned contemplation on how a rape and its ensuing investigation affects the victim in the days and weeks that follow.
It also features Munch’s former Homicide fellow detective after an apparent name change from Frank Pembleton to Bayard Ellis, who is apparently now a civil rights defense attorney. Yes, this one’s got none other than 11-time Emmy nominee (and two-time winner) Andre Braugher. Don’t worry, we also talk at length about a cast member’s involvement in a meditation cult and how it colors our undying appreciation of Mandy, the undeniable sexual energy between Braugher and Hargitay, and the notion of an SVU without Olivia Benson which was apparently in the cards.