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.

The first installment of the Neal Baer era is a doozy, pitting our intrepid SVUs against the defense-industrial complex. In a momentary distraction from family time, which became all too common during his time on the Unit, Elliot Stabler is pulled away from his family--in this case Maureen, a daughter who follows instructions POORLY--for a case in which he literally cannot help but become embroiled. Sure, jurisdiction and the vic's very speculative status as a special victim as it burned to a crisp are real-life hurdles that are completely ignored as Stabler and the Unit dig into the vic's eventually uncovered extremely terrible past.

Along the way, we find out that the US government paved the way for an especially odious pedo to victimize innocent youths without any roadblocks or pushback. We also get a Stabler traumatized for the first time and the introduction of one of the most beloved characters in the entire L&O universe. Fun is had amidst the tragic but fairly realistic world in which our victims live.

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.

In an episode Adam already covered on his guestisode of the These Are Their Stories Pod, we watched a preposterous reimagining of the various Michael Jackson sexual abuse allegations in which an uber-wealthy toy mogul lures children into his low-rent pirate-themed sex lair to dress them up in precious pajamas and have his way with them. Was it fun? Yes, absolutely. Did it feature enough lemur? Sadly, no.

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!

In our first brush with Season 23, the Randomizer (episode.lol) gifted us with the sight of that precious little Baby Boy Doe himself locked in a cage being forced to eat dog food by one of his friends. This kind of depravity only happens on SVU, folks. Of course, the madness only begins there as we are treated to a truly bonkers world where no child is ever, EVER safe. Along the way, the Munchie Boys go way off the rails with loads of esoteric content. Fans of that stuff will really enjoy the unedited Patreon edition which features an additional 40 minutes of fun.

When a sting to catch a groomer pedo goes sideways in a New Jersey train station, Alexandra Cabot disregards due process, civil rights, and decades of precedents in the pursuit of a conviction. We see the SVU debut of everyone's favorite legal hard ass, Elizabeth Donnelly, we learn about a particularly outlandish purchase that Josh is contemplating, and we definitively answer that age old question: Who's the boss? Those wanting Adam's airport rankings or our views on the relegation system in world football are encouraged to sign up for the Munchies tier on our Patreon. Enjoy!

Sure, this SVU spends a lot of time presupposing that we are heavily invested in the lives of minor recurring characters, but it also introduces us to a delightfully crass BBQ slinger with a penchant for lewd double entendres and forces us to go down all kinds of wild Munchian rabbit holes. Does Rollins have a separate person for her vacations at clothing-optional, adult-only all-inclusives? What scandals have engulfed the world of professional canoeing? Is Adam capable of surviving as a single parent for more than a week? Did we just watch an extra torpedo a "career" in background acting for the chance at one pay bump? This is definitely one for the Munchie-curious as a full 45 minutes of banter about Josh's concert going, Lucas Duda, and the Yiddish language (among many, many other things) had to be left on the cutting room floor. Enjoy!

Well, if you've ever seen a Season 1 SVU, you'll know that the show worked a little differently back then. If you see this episode from Season 1, you'll gain entrance to a world where things are fully upside down. Here we see tan lines in wildly improbably places, sex-positive waitstaff, disgraced pedophiles who blossom as well-intentioned tailors, train-obsessed teens, and, quite possibly, a travel writer with an unspeakably bizarre kink. As if that's not enough weird, we Munchers go even further off script and dive deep into tainted muskrats, Le Corbu furniture, impossible addresses, and the origins of the Garifuna people. Yeah, we go hard in this one people.

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.

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!

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.

When proffered the box of “Pandora” (S4E15)—phrasing?—Josh and Adam were forced to deal with yet another episode of SVU wherein many children fell victim to an international cabal of pedos, complete with one getting to proudly espouse his party platform to the detectives of SVU and a network television audience. This one hurtles forward at breakneck speed, taking Elliot from New York to Prague and back before the final act has even started. Along the way, Adam and Josh marvel at the way that early SVU writers had no real concept of how computers and the internet worked, the defenestrations of Prague, the endless stream of actors who REALLY pass for pedos in the SVU stable, and the emergence of Zero Dark Stabler. We’ve said it many times previously, but the label definitely fits here—this one is wild.

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!

Strap in for a wild ride, Munchies. This episode of SVU—”Ritual” (S5E14), featuring Emmy-winner Michael Emerson—starts in a park with an apparent ritual sacrifice and dives head first into the world of child slavery, complete with a Fin undercover op and possible Upper East Side blue-hair slave auctions. Along the way, Adam and Josh practice Santeria, lament the stolen Elgin Marbles, assess what jewelry screams slave owner, and wonder what Adam’s glasses being donned by a gruesome murderer means for him. They also finally chat about the 1980 exploitation chase flick, Night of the Juggler.

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!

Where to begin? Benson isn’t Stabler’s partner and is working in Computer Crimes. You’ve got the most aggressive sexualizing of a minor yet covered in the annals of Munch My Benson with Connor Paolo returning in one of the most insane episodes of SVU imaginable. There’s a shocking bout of TARU brutality. Kids are making mid-six-figures on their tween twink porn sites. Pedos are catfished. And the cold open's got the Molesto Muppets. This very episode was one of the handful Adam had in mind when the pod was a zygote in our hive-womb, and it DOES. NOT. DISAPPOINT.

Utter insanity abounds. Hold onto your butts, kiddos.