Ever wonder what would happen when Benson, Stabler, and the Unit get tangled up in an investigation that sends them looking into the Gulf Cartel, the FBI, Los Zetas, the CIA, and Cuban revolutionaries? Well, wonder no longer because this time around we are diving in to Season 11, Episode 6 "Spooked" featuring Vincent Spano reprising the role of FBI Special Agent Dean Porter. It starts with the SVU version of the Wet Bandits finding a pair of staged corpses with a rape tree and some stolen implants in the back of a box truck and just gets stranger from there. It may not make sense, but “Spooked” is a helluva nonsensical fever dream.

In the course of watching 112 episodes of SVU, few things have shocked us as much as seeing the writers of this show take a measured and nuanced approach to not one, but two decidedly problematic issues in polygamy and female genital mutilation. That these both appear in an episode that gives screen time to topics including "stop snitching" culture, tide charts, epilepsy, and one of Elliot Stabler's former flings means there was a whole lot to discuss. The true die hards will want to check out our Patreon for an extended history of the Biafran War from Adam, Josh going full on Rage Against The Machine, and the two of us nearly coming to blows over the availability of liquor stores in southern Utah. There is way too much fun/dumb stuff in this one folks!

This week, The Randomizer selected "Lowdown," which features Fin's exquisite description of "down low" culture. Sadly, this episode goes so hard on inappropriate "humor" that Josh was forced to make a running count of things you wouldn't (and shouldn't) say on TV in 2022. As we break this down, you'll hear about the police riot on Adam's block, Kevin Brown's sinker, and the art of mise-en-scène. You won't, however, hear the nearly 50 minutes of wild digressions about dumplings, Kenny Rogers, Kelvin's muscle boys, and the Kinsey scale unless you subscribe to our Patreon.

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.

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.

This week, The Munchie Boys tackle a Finisode preoccupied with unpacking Fin's history while an undercover with Narcotics, more than a decade after the fact. Rollins gets improbably shot, which leads to an unhealthy dose of police brutallity and metaphorical prison rape threats, but that's not nearly as shocking as some truly disturbing home-decor-driven revelations upon meeting a seemingly normal family with a secret left unspoken.

Wherein the Munchie boys dive into an episode that treats schizophrenia with an altogether un-SVU-like degree of nuance. Along the way, we wrestle with the consequences of our actions as we are forced to issue the very first Munch My Benson correction thanks to listener, Kara, who noted that Connie Nielsen's accent shenanigans were explained in the show, and in the SVU Fandom wiki page. Josh dog sits, Adam gets into a fight with pharmacy employees, and we go extremely deep on the munchiest of topics: the mechanics of Casey Novak's softball swing, window screen installation, the origins of the Albanian language, the many, many failings of CSU Burt Trevor, and a whole lot more.

Adam and Josh wrestle with a high-profile headline rip as Reasonable Doubt casts Bradley Whitford as the Woody Allen/Roman Polanski analog in an episode that doesn't do a particularly good job of establishing what its title might suggest it should: Reasonable Doubt. Rollins and Amaro don’t believe women, a faux celebrity couple act out the Woody/Mia divorce virtually note for note, and anti-Tibetan racism runs amok. In other words, SVU still SVUs. Adam looks into the Roman Polanski rape case and the victim and poses the ideal solution for what the US Government should do with the frozen real estate of Russian oligarchs, while Josh wonders whether this episode acts in tandem with the one that follows it in sequence to mete out some revenge on The West Wing. Y’know, Munchie stuff.

It's our 100th episode of Munch My Benson, and what better way to celebrate than with an episode of Law & Order: SVU that does not have Olivia Benson in it at all. In classic fashion, The Randomizer threw us a curveball and drew a Beckisode fronted by Connie Nielsen for our benchmark podcast which features a stand-out performance from apex-child-actor, Elle Fanning. Come along as we discuss primary nuclear strike targets, NXIVM, the correct name for the 2008 film Rambo, and projecting a 17-year-old Josh Brolin.

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.

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.

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.

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!

After kicking things off with Adam’s tales of neglected hot tub maintenance, the Munchie Boys step into the world of early Season 13 where a new writing staff ventures off into a Stabler-less world. Where some episodes may not be as boldly helmed and written, this is a fantastically directed, process-concerned contemplation on how a rape and its ensuing investigation affects the victim in the days and weeks that follow.

It also features Munch’s former Homicide fellow detective after an apparent name change from Frank Pembleton to Bayard Ellis, who is apparently now a civil rights defense attorney. Yes, this one’s got none other than 11-time Emmy nominee (and two-time winner) Andre Braugher. Don’t worry, we also talk at length about a cast member’s involvement in a meditation cult and how it colors our undying appreciation of Mandy, the undeniable sexual energy between Braugher and Hargitay, and the notion of an SVU without Olivia Benson which was apparently in the cards.

This week we watched an episode unlike any other SVU in the catalog. A young girl from Kansas is abandoned by her Fireball-shooting friends, drugged with exotic psychedelics, raped, and forced to dig her own physical and metaphorical grave by the acolytes of a famed radical psychologist who just so happens to have been SVU's own resident Alice-In-Wonderland-expert Amanda Rollins's former guru. Between blue rape avatars, expensive music cues, and extensive literary references, things get pretty weird. This, of course, is all just fuel for the Munch fire as Josh and Adam discuss the hero's journey; pedicab culture; early 20th century Swedish folklore illustrator, John Bauer; famed ethnobotanist and drug user, Terrence McKenna; famed memoirist and sex haver, Anaïs Nin; and whether or not we're too old to pick up trendy new drug habits. This is a wild ride folks. Hold on tight!

Faced with an episode with a helluva third act left turn, Adam and Josh reckon with a first-half A-plot borrowing heavily from the Terri-Rick saga in Degrassi before the second half shockingly grasps for a ripped-from-the-headlines story with a crooked juvenile court judge inspired by the nefarious goings-on in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. This leads to an exploration of both the Luzerne County Kids for Cash scandal and the grotesque systemic judicial overreach currently happening in Rutherford County, Tennessee.

Don’t worry, Josh and Adam find plenty of non-infuriating things to talk about, including the bizarre connection between Melinda McGraw and Alex Kingston, delightfully impossible photoshopping, Icelandic reproduction clearance apps, Lehman Brothers tearing the US economy to shreds, the origins of sexting, what other franchise Stuckey really belonged in instead of SVU, and (of course) Meloni’s rock-hard buns.

Come get some.

Josh and Adam get a little loose in this late-night follow up to last week's wild William-Lewis-fueled terror ride. Since "Post-Mortem Blues" is the rare SVU without a case for the squad to investigate, or really much of a plot at all, the Munchie boys complain about life and then wander from current (as of early December 2021) events and HBO's Succession, to method acting and the limits of attorney-client privilege on their way to placing this episode where it belongs in the show's pantheon.

Yet another Season 19 episode of SVU leaves the Munchie Boys scratching their heads wondering in just what world is this even occurring. Opening with an improbable YouTuber montage and having the case of the week closing with a full seven minutes of run time remaining to open the door for an SVU lyceum at a high school, this week’s 13 Reasons Why-inspired episode (Season 19, Episode 4 “No Good Reason”) is operating at one of the strangest frequencies we’ve encountered. This one forces Adam and Josh to reckon with vlogging that makes Eighth Grade seem totally comfortable, how and when they’re going to have to get a ChatSlam account for the podcast, and the murky demise of Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell.