If watching beloved characters make terrible choices thereby endangering the careers and lives of basically everyone they come in contact with is your cup of tea, then this week's SVU starts hot and keeps on delivering. In it, we see Detective Olivia Benson blunder from one bad decision to another in a bizarre attempt to share a few giggles with a brother she'd never met until she started running an unauthorized, after hours stakeout on him. We also see Stabler, without house or family since we are deep into Season 8's bad Stabler, come very close to being kicked off the police force as a result of covering for his partner, and of course we see our beloved Captain Cragen have to clean up his "two best detectives" bullshit so many times that I'm shocked he survived this one without a massive coronary.

This Season 12er takes us on a wild ride from unionizing dry cleaners, to piss-wielding nurses who just need an early-morning quickie, to militant environmentalists, and finally to the first installment of the Calvin Arliss saga which might have spared us all from the horrors of Baby Boy Doe, but for the fact of a clearly non-legally binding guardianship document. So many wild things happen in this one before it devolves into a weird template for later SVU character development.

Cold Case comes in with a cold case, and Olivia's ancient history comes screaming into this week's big-round-numbered installment of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. The old friends who join us this week are a welcome sight. Olivia's personal relationship with an older man alluded to in prior episodes, however, was much less welcome, as everyone around her tells her what she needs to hear while she bafflingly ignores their advice and is a real jerk to an old partner in the process.

In this week's episode Florida, the Munchie Boys are dragged into the Simon Marsden Saga, leaving them wishing they'd had been sent to Florida on a pointless side mission like Dean Porter was in this one. Alas, they're fully immersed in this Liv-servicing backstory, one which errs into some pretty painful narrative territory and squanders a golden opportunity to dive into what should be rich and interesting waters. There's a lot of next-level bad policework being done, and we're subjected to Olivia Benson channeling the worst impulses of Elliot Stabler, Amanda Rollins, and Nick Amaro in an episode in which nearly every action she takes is anathema to the character we’ve all known for 25 years.

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.

When a Nassau County Cop's awful, investment banker son rapes a woman after a miserable Halloween party next to a pile of disgusting New York City trash bags, you know SVU is getting the call. What you might not expect is that this time, the goose is Benson's former partner, the budget did not account for Halloween, and that the budget also did not account for requiring a script. Along the way, Benson gives such a subtle, loving prison-rape-taunt that you might well miss it, unless your brain is as thoroughly SVU-pilled as ours.

SVU takes on Big Realty this week, so Adam and Josh strapped in for a wild ride from pre-historical Season 1, where reason--and any future plotting with a big, bad bogeyman--goes to die. Liv ends up in the perp's crosshairs for the first of so, so, so many times, but not until a child and his grandfather are scared away from frisbee in the park forever, a corpse with a shocking hole in the middle of its head is shown to the delicate sensibilities of network TV viewers, and Munch idly wonders if it actually wasn't a coincidence that the (faked?) moon landing was scheduled to distract the public from Chappaquiddick. Season 1 eps can be quite the fever dream, and "Stalked" is no exception.

This week, The Randomizer selected "Lowdown," which features Fin's exquisite description of "down low" culture. Sadly, this episode goes so hard on inappropriate "humor" that Josh was forced to make a running count of things you wouldn't (and shouldn't) say on TV in 2022. As we break this down, you'll hear about the police riot on Adam's block, Kevin Brown's sinker, and the art of mise-en-scène. You won't, however, hear the nearly 50 minutes of wild digressions about dumplings, Kenny Rogers, Kelvin's muscle boys, and the Kinsey scale unless you subscribe to our Patreon.

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!

Josh and Adam get a little loose in this late-night follow up to last week's wild William-Lewis-fueled terror ride. Since "Post-Mortem Blues" is the rare SVU without a case for the squad to investigate, or really much of a plot at all, the Munchie boys complain about life and then wander from current (as of early December 2021) events and HBO's Succession, to method acting and the limits of attorney-client privilege on their way to placing this episode where it belongs in the show's pantheon.

Having drawn the all-timer “Beast’s Obsession” (S15E20) this week, the Munchie boys reckon with the Unit reckoning with Sgt. Olivia Benson reckoning with an escaped William Lewis, in quite possibly the torture-porniest episode of SVU in its storied history. With one of the most infamous perps in the 23-year-and-counting history of the show heinously raping, disfiguring, and dropping bodies left and right, Adam and Josh are left to watch in horror as Liv is once again shown to only be able to have a sex life in which violence is a key component and as featured extras are ignominiously and exploitatively corpsed for what they hope was at least SAG scale. They also lament the end of two acting careers before they’d really been able to begin, as two very young females were put through the violently sexually inappropriate grinder to further the horrific legend of Liv’s biggest tormentor.

As always, Adam and Josh veer off course with reckless abandon, exploring such varied topics as the job prospects for audition-shy mandolinists in NYC, the proper placement of dream catchers, why this show is so clearly anti-Bang energy drink, whether it’s gauche to lay the groundwork for an extramarital affair while working a protection detail, and Adam’s personal bridge rankings and grocery store journey through New York. So strap in for a wild ride, as Liv goes is on the bullet train to hell and we're all passengers alongside her.

The Randomizer has thrown the Munchies Boys into the deep end this week, thrusting them into the sixth staggered installment of a sex-trafficking saga centered around Noah’s father and a ragtag crew of severely traumatized sex workers—”Surrendering Noah” (SVU S16E23). Here, there’s a ton to unpack. How do they keep Baby Doe calm? Why did they slam Elliot at the end of the episode? Why did both Benson and Amaro think he’d be a good candidate for Sergeant? Buckle up, kiddos, it’s another wild ride, and this one has Nick Amaro riding off into the sunset after suiciding-by-cop Noah’s monster dad.

What happens when the season from which light cannot escape—SVU’s 19th—bestows upon the world a two-part season finale? An unintelligible, unmitigated disaster. Reality and common sense fold in on themselves, and we’re all left to try to make sense of the hellish mess that is “Remember Me” (S19E23). When character motivation, logic, and how technology actually works are entirely discarded, you are left with a confounding mélange of nonsensical dialogue and wild conclusions with nary a passing relationship to reality. Needless to say, this ride—a wild one for all the wrong reasons—gave the Munchie Boys plenty to discuss.

Has your edging fetish turned you from a respectable snitch into a radical eco-terrorist? Are you curious about the lengths Law and Order: SVU would go to torture the poor extras whose unheralded and underpaid work transforms a film set into a living vibrant world? Are you dying to know what Medical Examiner Warner did during her year in Paris? For the answers to these questions, plus tips on how to decorate your anarchist bookstore, tune in to this week's Munch My Benson where we break down "Informed" (Season 8, Episode 1), which sees Olivia Benson screw up a rape case so badly that she ends up being forced by an implausibly accented Marcia Gay Harden to live with a bunch of bomb-throwing hippies for nearly three months. Please rate and review the podcast, and thanks so much for listening!

We got to watch an all-time Law And Order SVU ("Undercover" Season 9, Episode 15) which sees Olivia Benson go undercover in a notorious women's prison in order to catch a serial rapist corrections officer. Along the way, we discuss the proper way to light an upskirt be-ankled panties shot, '90s nepotism star Barry Van Dyke, and the meaning of the phrase "iron kitten." We also talk about a few of the more famous residents of New York State's Bedford Hills Correctional Facility For Women. This is one of the standout episodes of the entire series, and though it mostly deals in shocking trauma, the writers and producers of this wonderful show found ways to sprinkle in lighthearted dick jokes throughout this heart-pounding hour of television. Enjoy!

Baby Doe gets kidnapped. Olivia Benson loses her shit.