Cabot, Brainmelter, Pantheon, Classic, Peak, Stunt-casting Josh Duggan Cabot, Brainmelter, Pantheon, Classic, Peak, Stunt-casting Josh Duggan

Episode 88: Kevin Arnold Is a Power Reassurance Rapist (S4E22 Futility)

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!

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Episode 186: We Saw Edward James’s Olmos (S8E12 Outsider)

A series of seemingly unconnected rapes forces Fin Tutuola to join forces with a man who never sleeps. A man who knows the precise tenor and pitch of every recycling center's lunch whistle in the city limits. A man who walks. A man named Chester Lake. We also meet our first perpetrator who staffed the Obama White House, and one of the vics totally isn’t Amanda Rollins—she just looks like her, right?

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Brainmelter, Cabot, Classic Josh Duggan Brainmelter, Cabot, Classic Josh Duggan

Episode 169: Whoever Put This Smut on Her Computer Entered Through a Cyber Back Door (S10E21 Liberties)

Strange things are afoot this week, as this SVU starts with an ex stalking his former flame from Rhode Island to the Big City and catfishes a rando into raping her via a rape fantasy website and then takes a wild left turn when the judge presiding over the case becomes convinced the perp is his son who was kidnapped when he was three years old. To make things even weirder, he enlists none other than Elliot Stabler to handle the investigation into this cold case. There are huge leaps and ghost babies in the concrete in this one. Prepare yourself.

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Brainmelter, Cabot, Harper Anderson Saga Josh Duggan Brainmelter, Cabot, Harper Anderson Saga Josh Duggan

Episode 167: The Whole Point of the Thong Is That You Don’t Make the Pantyline (S2E3 Closure (Part 2))

In a conclusion to last week's installment of Law & Order: SVU following nearly a full year later, another rape victim turns up describing an attack an awful lot like our vics described in Part 1. This means Tracy Pollan is back, picking up where she left off, which was getting an Emmy nomination for playing this role. This doesn't yield a second one, but she still rocks in "Closure (Part 2)" and helps give this episode the titular want that last week's left us all wanting.

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Brainmelter, Late, Carisisode Josh Duggan Brainmelter, Late, Carisisode Josh Duggan

Episode 149: He’s Basically the Gentrifying Rapist (S17E19 Sheltered Outcasts)

Sonny Carisi gets down and dirty with some pretty gnarly dudes in this week's SVU, which sends dearest Dominick undercover into a shelter populated by paroled sex offenders. One (or more?) of these parolees appears to be raping neighborhood women and the Unit has to figure out who's doing it before Carisi gets beaten to a pulp by meathead vigilantes. Luckily Michael Rapaport is around to save Carisi's bacon once, but is he the guy? This mostly effective episode leaves Carisi wondering aloud if maybe the sex offender registry is unfair when compared to say a murderer who gets out and doesn't have to tell a soul that they cut off someone's head with a dull machete.

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Brainmelter, Pre-history, Livisode Josh Duggan Brainmelter, Pre-history, Livisode Josh Duggan

Episode 143: Whatever, We’re Just Gonna Leave This Dangling (S1E8 Stalked)

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.

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Pre-history, Serial Killer, Brainmelter Josh Duggan Pre-history, Serial Killer, Brainmelter Josh Duggan

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.

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Episode 115: Give Someone Diabetes by Making Them Beer Bong Apple Juice for 15 Takes (S12E10 Rescue)

In a true whirling dervish of an episode that turns the audience around and around, we start at a "kick-ass loft party," careen into a sexual predator in an ambulance, and end up back where the B-plot started with Calvin courtesy of his mother filching jewelry from a different crime scene. "Rescue" (S12E10) takes us everywhere. Along the way, we touch on improbable sampling of large members, insane PowerPoint presentations, and the Duke faux sex thesis controversy. This one goes to some weird places.

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Pantheon, Greylek, Classic, Peak, Stunt-casting Josh Duggan Pantheon, Greylek, Classic, Peak, Stunt-casting Josh Duggan

Episode 111: Dylan McKay: Rapist (S10E1 Trials)

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.

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Stunt-casting, Classic, Pantheon, Peak Josh Duggan Stunt-casting, Classic, Pantheon, Peak Josh Duggan

Episode 110: It's Not A Gay Cowboy Orgy, Probably... (S11E18 Bedtime)

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.

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Episode 107: You Take Your Pension and Open up a Jet Ski Dealership (S15E2 Imprisoned Lives)

Well, we've got ourselves another Mo-Mo incident in Times Square... Needlessly picking up right from the smoldering wreckage of Liv freeing herself from her captor William Lewis, we get a stark ripped-from-the-headlines episode delving into the infamous Ariel Castro case. Kidnapping victims are held in cages in the basement and raped for decades, and Liv's PTSD is still very real. This episode dwells in darkness.

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Episode 106: She’s Summoning the Monolith (S15E1 Surrender Benson)

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!

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Episode 105: Oh, They’ll Sexualize Anyone in a Really Terrible Way (S14E24 Her Negotiation)

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.

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Two-Parter, Doddsisode, Barba, Late, Brainmelter Josh Duggan Two-Parter, Doddsisode, Barba, Late, Brainmelter Josh Duggan

Episode 99: Well She Apparently Has an STI, So Something Did Rub Off (S17E23 Heartfelt Passages)

The Munchie Boys pick up where they left off last week, trudging through the murk as Ray’s tall brother faces the fallout from having been charged as a serial rapist while the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association possibly threatens Barba’s life for having the temerity to come after one of their guys. This fallout includes the first—and thus far, only—time an officer on the Unit dies in the line of duty, which gives Adam and Josh quite a bit to mull over while wondering why the stakes were lowered so much before offing him. Any episode that has Chekhov’s gun go off while also not having Chekhov’s gun go off means there’s going to be plenty of plot discussion to be had. There are also plenty of discussions about the typically insane things that SVU forces one to reckon with, namely intimidation wizards, phantom door-locking chicanery, the hilarity of needing apple boxes in hostage shoots, and much, much more.

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Episode 98: His Refractory Period Is in Inverse Proportion to His Height (S17E22 Intersecting Lives)

Hot on the heels of an episode that nearly broke our rating scale, the Munchie Boys watched Part 1 of a two-parter featuring Ray Romano's kooky brother Robert from the hit turn-of-the-century sitcom for olds, Everybody Loves Raymond. Fans of that show will remember that the actor in question, Brad Garrett, is really, REALLY tall. This causes the kind of continuity problems that only SVU can create. We're obviously talking about complex genital geometry problems. We would, of course, be remiss if our discussion stayed on topic, so expect to hear about Chinese New Year, more car talk from Josh, Rikers Island, and Predator.

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William Lewis Saga, Barba, Livisode, Pantheon Josh Duggan William Lewis Saga, Barba, Livisode, Pantheon Josh Duggan

Episode 89: They’re So Balls Deep in Starting Their Affair That Benson’s Able to Slip Their Tail with No Resistance (S15E20 Beast’s Obsession)

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.

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Episode 88: Kevin Arnold Is a Power Reassurance Rapist (S4E22 Futility)

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!

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Brainmelter, Stunt-casting Josh Duggan Brainmelter, Stunt-casting Josh Duggan

Episode 86: How Many Times Were Her Feet In That Cum? (S12E23 Delinquent)

On this week's Munch My Benson, we wonder openly if the world would be a better place if the two leading actors from a certain 1985 Peace Corps comedy had a little less chemistry. While we certainly do break down this Season 12 stinker ("Delinquent") from the dark days just before Meloni left SVU, we go hard on the digressions in this one folks, so get ready for the only SVU podcast brave enough to incorporate Dolph Lundgren's Japanese bonafides, Finnish art house darling Aki Kaurismäki, and radical fecal gymnastics in a single episode.

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Pantheon, Classic, Livisode, Novak, Lake, Brainmelter, Peak Josh Duggan Pantheon, Classic, Livisode, Novak, Lake, Brainmelter, Peak Josh Duggan

Episode 68: Close Enough to See Dick Mole (S9E15 Undercover)

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!

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Brainmelter, Barba, Late Josh Duggan Brainmelter, Barba, Late Josh Duggan

Episode 58: I Think We Can Assume Cassidy Is So Dumb That He Tries to Golf at a Disc Golf Course (S19E1 Gone Fishin’)

What happens when a new showrunner takes over Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and doesn’t understand the characters at all? Or how SVU tells stories? Well, the Randomizer selected “Gone Fishin’” (Season 19, Episode 1), so the Munchie Boys found out the hard way. Fin kidnaps a perp who absconded to Cuba? Dean Winters and Peter Jacobson coexist in an episode where Jacobson isn’t Bart Ganzel, Cassidy’s pimp employer from the Cragen waking up with a corpse in his bed three-part saga, challenging the strength of the space-time continuum? How ridiculous can a soundstage set that’s supposed to pass for Cuba get? The answers to these and so many other befuddling questions lie within the confines of this installment of Munch My Benson.

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