Episode 209: You Don’t Skip off the Curb Because You’re Going to Get Meet Joe Blacked (S23E17 Once Upon A Time In El Barrio)
Realizing they had added an actor to the main cast but given him very little to do in the intervening episodes, vics tangentially related to Velasco via his parish priest back home bring Juárez screaming into this week's installment of SVU. Heavy on Mexico but light on events occurring with a semblance of storytelling logic, this episode bounces back and forth pretty dramatically between what could be called good and bad. Hold onto your cellphones and don't look both ways before you cross the street this week if you want to fit in.
Episode 193: She Really Wants to Get Back to the Pretty Boy Perp with the Peen Prob that Elliot’s Probing (S8E19 Florida)
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.
Episode 121: She Comes from a Good Family, She Eats Legumes (S1E4 Hysteria)
In a return to randomness after last week's Munchies' Choice, the Munchie Boys were thrown back into the pre-historical realm of Season 1, where SVU was still trying to figure out what it was. "Hysteria" was the franchise's first foray into the world of serial rapists/killers and sex workers, and given what we've seen thus far in Season 1, it's fair to assume that these subjects are handled, ummm, indelicately.
Don’t worry, there’s also tons of weird stuff like improbable shoe detective work, random doctors prescribing self-administered hot meat injections, the trans/cis sex workers’ turf wars of this universe leading Adam to look into the history of Times Square, both the Def-Leppard-related and non-Dep Leppard-related past of the diagnosis of hysteria, and real-life Vice cops going down in brothel busts. This one is wild in the ways you want an SVU to be.
Episode 84: What Happens in the Box Stays in the Box (S16E7 Chicago Crossover)
This week, Josh and Adam are thrust into a terrifying world where the laws of physics and mankind are tossed aside without hesitation. That world is called Chicago. Our SVU for this week is sandwiched in between an episode of Chicago Fire (S3E7 “Nobody Touches Anything”) and a Chicago P.D. (S2E7 “They’ll Have to Go Through Me”). While one does not need to watch either of these to enjoy our SVU, we obviously dove into the deep end with a fun-loving crew of Vegas-visiting, zumba-instructing, bounty-hunting firefighters and then waded through the muck with a morally dubious band of police officers. It provided us with a veritable matryoshka doll of tangents within tangents as we break down all the action from nearly 3 hours of television. We talk Shirley Chisholm and the Chelsea Piers. We speculate about the kind of person who gets a Joe Paterno tattoo in 2021, and Josh gets Chicago pilled.
Episode 55: The Definition of Wan (S22E7 Hunt, Trap, Rape and Release)
What do the business of sports, Adam's email inbox, Stockton California pizza chains, and the contents of Amanda Rollins's stately pleasure dome have in common? Well, they all come up in our especially tangent prone rundown of "Hunt, Trap, Rape and Release" (S22E7) Munch My Benson's first taste of SVU Season 22. Along the way, we rate the loudest blouses in SVU, the greatest challenges in home laundry, and the least believable cast members of Law & Order: Criminal Intent among many, many other topics.
Episode 8: Sweet Talk, Sugar Mouth (S2E7 Asunder)
To quote Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Into each life some rain must fall / Some days must be dark and dreary." In the life of Munch My Benson, S2E07 "Asunder" is one of those dark and dreary days. Though the subject matter is almost as grim as the acting, we hold our heads high as we break down the cringe-iest lines and the worst performances. Have you ever considered the efficacy of social distancing in the year 2000? Are you familiar with the lethal range of an airborne cast-iron skillet? Are you brave enough to play street ball against some bad cops? The MMB boys keep a stiff upper lip as they answer these eternal questions, and more.