Another Paternity Leave Installment is here, and this one could ruin your childhood.

When The Wonder Years ended almost 30 years ago, no one could have imagined the incredibly dark turn that Kevin Arnold's life would take. Yes, Mr. Arnold's death, Paul's going to Harvard, and Winnie to a long and successful career on the Hallmark Channel were all disturbing outcomes, but this is much worse. This SVU shows little Kevin Arnold beating, raping, and then re-victimizing women across the Upper West Side. This obviously provides tons of fodder for the Munch mill as we dig into a really great episode of television. We talk Jeopardy! prep, our favorite lawyer lover plot twists, and Josh takes us on a particularly unexpected trip through the shenanigans of the Warwick R.I. city council. Enjoy!

Another week, another Adam's Paternity Leave release, this time we've got the one, the only Patricia Charbonneau, about whom this podcast is centrally concerned. As mentioned last week, this is content that's been behind the Patreon paywall for a while. Patreon payments are frozen for the time being. New Munchies can't join as paying members until that's unpaused, but you can join as a free member and at least be kept abreast of pod news...

When questions like “If I die, and there’s a hot tub, can I be made a saint?” get posed, you know things got weird. This installment in Munchstory has Adam and Josh covering “Streetwise” (S9E11) like a blanket on a mattress—or a society doucher, apparently. This episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has it all. Mae Whitman going from glitz to gutter and back again. STUNTS! Adam Beach. A bum family complete with a pretty messianic cult leader dad who isn’t afraid to go big. True Munchies will enjoy the diversions through high society, defunct Swedish automotive companies, the conditions necessary for beatification and the Christianization of the Welsh, defunct NYC music institutions, the nature of paintball, and much, much more.

Another week, another Adam's Paternity Leave release, this time we've got some of the best acting we've seen in MMB history...

The Munchie Boys watched a helluva SVU featuring Oscar-nominee Stephen Rea in a truly spectacular guest performance in an episode featuring a slew of great acting and seriously interesting direction. This week’s installment was “Solitary” (S11E3), and it’s one of the most existentially introspective and unique shows that has fallen into our laps. And of course, judging by the title of this week’s episode, other weirder stuff also got discussed, including Elliot’s extramarital dip into formicophilia, a roach and its wrangler getting jobbed out of residuals, tide charts and greater New York water temperatures, and narrowly averted wartime disasters. If we’re talking about how lots of people should have won Emmys for this episode, it’s a special one.

While Adam is on paternity leave, check out this banger:

Thomas Jefferson once declared coffee “the favorite drink of the civilized world,” but the wild world of coffee trading on display in Season 9, Episode 18, “Trade” would seem to imply that it’s also the favorite drink of loaded scumbag fathers who look eerily like the pater familias in the Christian-propaganda family dramedy 7th Heaven. It’s rare to have an episode of SVU with as much gold as this, but in the O’Halloraniest episode in Early Munchstory, the world of coffee trading yields a veritable mother lode for Adam and Josh to ingest. Whether it was the complete lack of understanding as to how to coffee trade actually works or the jaw-dropping shocks delivered at every turn, this glorious wildly inappropriate pun fest delivers the goods. Strap yourselves in and get ready for a jolt because Reverend Camden was let loose, and the ensuing havoc knows no bounds.

What happens when Zack Morris turns up gut-shot in an alley behind a gay bar with multitudinous loads found in his person when he's examined at the hospital? Utter insanity, that's what. Not to be outdone, a young Elizabeth Banks pops up as his adult film star wife, and we go to set where she's about to treat some workmen pretty well. This is a wild one. What a time to be alive.

In conjunction with this week's interview with Michelangelo Milano, who plays Patrick Binder, Larissa/Brandy's boyfriend in this episode, we are dropping this classic episode back into the feed. Make sure to listen to Michelangelo's interview which dropped today, and check out his podcast, The Return Slot... Of Horror (YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify).

Wanna hear what happens when an episode breaks the Munchie Boys and their patented SVU-episode scoring system? Well, “Possessed” (Season 12, Episode 12) broke it like the Kool-Aid Man. Next to every other of the 96 episodes they’ve watched so far, this beautiful piece of art had Adam and Josh contemplating some pretty grand concepts like: was Jerry Horne’s Twin Peaks walkabout really a representation of the liminal state at the end of his life where he was just looking for his Brandy? what exactly was contained within the pages of Buzz’s skin mags that Kevin couldn’t wrap his head around in Home Alone? where is the line where we progressives can stomach police brutality? are we seeing the tripartite peak of pedo performance?

If this were a podcast that employed trigger warnings, it’d probably have to get tagged with all of them. Instead, you are advised to hold onto your butts. There is simply an abundance of insanity that’s too fantastic to ignore. Bask in the glow of “Possessed,” listen, and rejoice.

After nearly four months, the Randomizer finally rolled a Neal Baer-era SVU for us to watch, and despite a slow beginning, "Design" really delivers the wild stuff we love. This episode was supposed to star disgraced former President Donald J Trump as a hot piece of genetic material who's disrupting the mortuary sciences industry. Instead it features a laundry list of famous faces with strange backstories. What kind of madness allows the Munchie Boys to say "electroejaculation" 21 times in a single episode? Listen and find out. We also learn some terrible news about Odafin Tutuola's taste in music. Somehow, this is a crossover episode that terminates in Law & Order "Flaw" (S16E2).

Getting kicked back into the Pre-History of SVU could have been jarring for the Munchie Boys, but Nocturne had them speculating that it might have served as a blueprint of sorts for the Neal Baer years. Despite not having guest stars who Adam or Josh knew, this episode really landed a tragic story of long-term abuse begetting another cycle of abuse. We were also thrown into a somewhat lengthy discussion of the McMartin preschool trial fed by the Satanic panic of the mid-'80s (and prosecutorial misconduct, overzealous investigators, bunk leading interviewing of hundreds of children, and wildly unprofessional behavior of people in the media who were literally in bed with the prosecution) thanks to a throwaway line from Cragen.

For the second time, the Munchie Boys go back to the well from the earliest episodes of the podcast to reevaluate (with the benefit of having now seen and rated more than 170 episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) the truly brainmelting Season 3 banger, Ridicule, which gives us Casey Novak's very disturbing origin story before she changed her name from Amelia Chase. The world of SVU is upside-down in this one as women sexually assault men, tumescence exams are discussed, and autoerotic asphyxiation is de rigueur. And… Casey Novak—er, “Amelia Chase” is involved in almost all of that.

Luscious Grape Distributors--yup, that's the name--seems like a truly awful place to work, if its depiction in SVU's Season 12 gem "Bully" is any indication. As a harrowing journey into abusive workplaces for the first two-thirds of its runtime, the ep succeeds on its own. Then? Well, then there's a turn so shocking, so inventive, and so ingenious that it had Adam and Josh wanting to do a five-season oral history on the making of this single episode of television. This one's got bad bosses, bad moms, and bad coworkers all packed into one delightfully disgusting package.

When television's Harry Bosch (technically Titus Welliver) started firing blanks a few years ago, the strangest thing happened. Instead of happily raising the large brood of children he already had, he chose to pimp out first his wife, then his nanny, and finally his own daughter in a bizarre cult-like scheme to rear as many children as possible. Obviously, things went off the rails, or in the case of his daughter, nearly on to them when she attempts to throw herself in front of the N train starting this week's SVU in motion. Along the way Adam tells you all about applying for pre-K in New York, and we wonder whether or not NYPD could conceivably plant evidence beneath two feet of concrete under your townhouse.

Helen of Troy might have had the face that launched a thousand ships, but this gem of a Season 12 SVU is the problematic hellscape that launched the Munch My Benson ranking system. Kids are never safe in SVU, and in this episode we see kids casually listing their prostitution fees, kids getting Meet-Joe-Blacked outside of a farmers' market, kids getting chained up and forced to drink cyanide, and kids destroying a bespoke, heirloom blueberry compote. This is one hell of a ride. Enjoy!

We let the Munchies pick this week's episode, and by god did they pick an all-timer. Everybody's favorite cool uncle, John Stamos, shines as a reproductive abuser, and Lori Singer is but the most famous of his many, many victims. This one really has everything we here at Munch My Benson are looking for out of this unique series. Thank you for this marvelous choice!

IT IS HERE! LUKE PERRY, Y'ALL.

Are you holding onto your butts? Are you ready to have Law & Order: Special Victims Unit lay waste to your childhood? To destroy the sacred bond you shared with THE heartthrob of the '90s? To see the profound damage said heartthrob did to the very recognizable women he violated after leaving the glamorous environs of Beverly Hills?

In what might be the stuntcastiest episode in SVU's storied history, Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) does some pretty bad things to Darlene Conner (Sara Gilbert), Carol Vecsey (Julie Bowen), and our collective innocence. This episode is what started this whole venture back when it little more than a bitchin' name. Yes, via this insane show, Dylan McKay rapes our youth.

What this delightful episode of SVU (S11E18 Bedtime) lacks in terms of coherent three-act structure or thoughtful character development is more than made up for by the absolute cavalcade of bonkers plot lines and instantly recognizable famous people. Ann-Margaret justifiably won an Emmy for her turn as the perma-drunk Rita Wills. William Goddamn Atherton plays a petulant serial killer! Morgan Fairchild gets about 30 seconds of screen time! Liv and Elliot get propositioned for a threesome! Theres so much fun in this episode you're going to have to just dive in and revel in the madness.

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!

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.

Wanna hear what happens when an episode breaks the Munchie Boys and their patented SVU-episode scoring system? Well, “Possessed” (Season 12, Episode 12) broke it like the Kool-Aid Man. Next to every other of the 96 episodes they’ve watched so far, this beautiful piece of art had Adam and Josh contemplating some pretty grand concepts like: was Jerry Horne’s Twin Peaks walkabout really a representation of the liminal state at the end of his life where he was just looking for his Brandy? what exactly was contained within the pages of Buzz’s skin mags that Kevin couldn’t wrap his head around in Home Alone? where is the line where we progressives can stomach police brutality? are we seeing the tripartite peak of pedo performance?

If this were a podcast that employed trigger warnings, it’d probably have to get tagged with all of them. Instead, you are advised to hold onto your butts. There is simply an abundance of insanity that’s too fantastic to ignore. Bask in the glow of “Possessed,” listen, and rejoice.

Did you know that Liv tells a suspect that she knows he “stabbed the Captain with a pickle?” That’s no typo. It’s in this beautiful episode of television.

The fates (and by fates, we mean episode.lol, built for us by friend of the pod, Flet) elected to bestow upon the world the Valentine’s Day gift of Wetness—specifically S12E5 “Wet,” which is truly one of the most balls-to-the-wall, front-to-back utterly insane episodes the Munchie Boys have embarked upon in a podcast brimming to the top with insane installments. Moving past its fantastic name, this SVU is centrally concerned with: SexProwl, a professionally conceived “YouTube of sex” wherein true douchebros have a following; Soda being little more than poison for our youth; Corporations trying to buy up our water supply and the dastardly tactics they’ll employ to meet their goals; Fungi, which should never be used to hurt anyone; The true horrors that inherited wealth wreak upon the rest of the world, namely bad performance art, unwarranted cocksurety, jewelry-related guilting, unloving guardianship, drug addiction, and the framing of innocent mycologists for murder

Seriously. Mushrooms, soda being poison, water rights, and horrible rich people. And it gives David Krumholtz a truly Krumholtzian role to jazz rant his way through. This is all a gift to humankind, and we’re glad to be here for it.

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.