What happens when a super rich girl gets cut off after her umpteenth parentally funded business venture fails? Well, since this is SVU, a grisly double homicide hastily staged to look like a murder-suicide, followed in short order by a slew of hits taken out on the Unit after they ignore Sarah Paulson/Anne Gillette's extreme white privilege, and an off-the-books massive undercover fake jailbreak operation against Cragen's explicit orders that they were all off the case.

There's also plenty of class warfare, crapping on abstract art, and multiple undercover ops, one of which includes Liv domming out on a bootlicking blue blood. And don’t worry, this still opens plenty of doors to vanish through, so if you want to know how abstract art got funded, and what nefarious organization was doing it, look no further than this episode of Munch My Benson.

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.

If one were to carve a Mount Rushmore of bad moms out of someone's holy mountain, Diane Venora's character from this SVU would certainly be on it. This lady sucks a lot. While we get deep into her antics, we also talk about Adam's sickness (spoiler alert: he shouldn't have gone to that Yankees game), Belizean airports, nonsexual hygge snuggling, trashcan chicken, and Kenny Rogers.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sometimes life gives you lemons, and sometimes--if you happen to be on Season 12 of SVU--life gives you three days’ worth of legendary caulkhead, Jeremy Irons. It is a testament to the bizarre universe this often beautifully odd show inhabits that they chose to use that time to have him unpack the psychological trauma borne by two sisters who were repeatedly spoon-raped by their own mother. Yeah, this episode goes there, then turns around, and goes back for more. We, of course, use this absolutely depraved premise as a springboard into discussions of Josh's car troubles, Adam's isolation, the poor woman's Glenn Close, the rich man's Bryan Brown, and, obviously, our plans to ride out armageddon. As always, rate and review the podcast, and keep on munching.

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.

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.

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!

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.

When The Randomizer chose the week's episode—Venom (S7E18)—listeners would be forgiven for thinking they might be embarking on an hour's worth of sub-par television, but they'd be wrong. This—the first half of Ludacris's voyage through SVU (we covered part 2 in Episode 51 of Munch My Benson, "You Can't Eat Ethan Hawke")—features some standout performances and wildly inappropriate content. The Munchie Boys obviously break it down in lurid detail and answer an assortment of essential questions: How to dig a shallow grave? Why are they still making courtroom dramas? What are Liam Neeson's most underrated films? And of course, how many times is too many times to say "nips out on a gurney?" This one will make you wish Tej Parker would open up an East Coast branch of his car-modding, bro-hugging crime syndicate. Enjoy!

This week, the Randomizer (thanks, Flett) blessed us with an unforgettable episode of Law & Order SVU ("Unorthodox" S9E13). It starts with an absolute bang and then careens madly between isolationist ultra-orthodox Jewish sects and porn addicted preteens. Of course, we Munchers go even further afield as we question the existence of an upper peninsula, rank our favorite ape films, and uncover the supernatural engine that powers Casey Novak's courtroom success. This is truly an episode worth savoring. 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.

Has your edging fetish turned you from a respectable snitch into a radical eco-terrorist? Are you curious about the lengths Law and Order: SVU would go to torture the poor extras whose unheralded and underpaid work transforms a film set into a living vibrant world? Are you dying to know what Medical Examiner Warner did during her year in Paris? For the answers to these questions, plus tips on how to decorate your anarchist bookstore, tune in to this week's Munch My Benson where we break down "Informed" (Season 8, Episode 1), which sees Olivia Benson screw up a rape case so badly that she ends up being forced by an implausibly accented Marcia Gay Harden to live with a bunch of bomb-throwing hippies for nearly three months. Please rate and review the podcast, and thanks so much for listening!