The first episode back from lockdown and the tumultuous summer of 2020 has our SVUs grappling with their own existence. Can they reckon with the role they've played in the realm of copaganda? Can they talk about systemic racism without doing the racism themselves? Can they figure out how to wear masks in the throes of the pandemic? These are questions that the Munchie Boys are forced to answer in this navel-gazing episode of SVU.

It's Velasco's first official day on the unit, which means that Fin, Rollins, and Benson will all be adjusting to almost having a reasonable number of investigators. Of course, it also means that Chief McGrath now has eyes inside the unit. While season-long arcs are all well and good, we Munchers are after the good stuff, which in this episode means pondering the physics of rooftop coitus and digging deep into the unintentional racism in which certain iterations of this show sometimes traffic.

This week the Munchie Boys travel back into the Pre-History of SVU, before it knew what it was but when it definitely knew what it wanted to be: salacious, outrageous, and just a little bit pervy. "Stocks & Bondage" marked the show's first dalliances into the world of BDSM, and it wastes little time getting weird as hell. So come along for the ride, and get familiar with The Human Ashtray, comely leather salespeople who seem to have an interest in Cassidy (and who Cassidy is decidedly into), and Tennesseans who should never have been let out of the state. And if we're talking finance, as the episode's title implies, you know things are going to get pretty dark in this one, so strap on--I mean, strap in.

Have you ever heard the old joke about the longest-running scripted drama in television history doing a bizarre ripped-from-the-headlines episode about two aging, hoarder brothers as a convoluted excuse to say nasty slurs on primetime TV? Oh, you haven't? Well, after you've seen "Alta Kockers," you will have. Oh, and one of these brothers, who hasn't left his mother's house since 1976, somehow becomes the literary voice of the present generation via his anonymously published novel. Sure.

This one is about as absurd as SVU gets, but thankfully wonderful moments from legends Judd Hirsch and Wallace Shawn, and some truly standout background acting prevent this from being an all-time stinker.

Plus: Special Contibutor Natalie graciously joined Josh with a dissenting opinion to tell us why our ranking of 'Service" (S19E18) which we covered in MMB 119 - No, Rollins Is A Tactile Detective was unfair.

To say Law & Order: SVU's historic treatment of the transgender community is fraught with problems is an understatement of epic proportions, and this week's episode--S17E13 Transgender Bridge--makes, ummm, progress? Of course, it's incremental at best, and much of the ground gained is immediately lost by jamming the episode full of racial stereotyping that plays rough.

This week's episode pushed the Munchie Boys so far out of their comfort zone that they brought in reinforcements in the form of a guest segment (for Munchies, this will be as an entirely separate Bonus Episode) with gracious trans listener Summer, who hopefully makes up for the two cishet honkies who host this weekly show and is more qualified to speak on how this episode still had a lot of work to do to get things right.

Hold onto your butts. This is a long one.

Sometimes an SVU really does the racism. Then there's S7E6 Raw, which for an unfathomable 20:51 unfurls bigotry at an astonishing rate--an average of once every 23 seconds. And it doesn't even start until past the 16-minute mark. They pack so much hate into this episode that it left Adam and Josh dumbfounded.

We at Munch My Benson like to go off on tangents, and the intellectual fuel provided by "American Tragedy" (S15E3) propelled us pretty far out there. We learn about old New York when it was still basically New Amsterdam; we break down Cybill Shepherd's accent as it wavers in and out of caricature; we delve into the Trayvon Martin and Paula Deen cases from whose headlines this episode was ripped; we learn about John Cougar Mellencamp's extended family; and, we definitely talk about whether or not it's socially acceptable to deck a bald man in the middle of the night on a lonely street corner. Enjoy!

When an episode of Law & Order: SVU contains such shockingly racist characters that Adam and Josh have to ask themselves what audio they can actually pull for an episode of this podcast that revels in wild inappropriateness, you know you’re dealing with some next-level racism. “Hate” (S5E13) has so much wrong with it that even the Munchie Boys were uncomfortable. While reckoning with the racism in every nook and cranny of this episode, the topics of fuel oil, man’s odd relationship with fire, the virtues of accurately mining stereotypes to avoid hiccups, reclusive authors' semi-famous sons, and how Captain America’s racist son reframes his legacy. If ever an episode needed a trigger warning, this one does for the discussion of anti-Muslim racism and a clip pulled from the show for begrudging reference which neither Adam nor Josh felt particularly good about pulling.