Episode 223: Why Don’t They Have Someone Sexily Peel off a CPAP? (S24E15 King Of The Moon)
There are strange eps of the longest running primetime drama in TV history, but none come close to matching what happens this week. To say that the last 4 minutes of this Law & Order: Special Victims Unit are unlike any moment in the show's 25+ years of existence would be an obscene understatement. Guest star Bradley Whitford goes for it in ways that you simply are not prepared to see.
Episode 222 - Speaking Of Stereotypes (S17E13 Forty-One Witnesses)
The rape of a woman just outside her apartment building frays the social fabric of New York, when so many of her neighbors saw something happen, but none of them took action to help or even notify the police. This being a season 17 SVU, one can't help but notice the racism bubbling very close to the surface in the portrayal of the 3 bad teens who assaulted her, and of the urbane Lower Manhattanites who refused to notice a damsel in distress. We, of course, were more interested in which East Village coffeeshops allow the open sale of ketamine inside during business hours, and why Adam never visited during his time there. We also meet a magical drunk man on the witness stand, and a Carisi unlike any we've seen before.
Episode 221: Can Credits Just Roll in Very Slo-Mo? (S20E2 Man Down)
Picking up where we left off in MMB 219, we had a SUPER bad dad who was just found not guilty of ummm, SAing his son to show him what a real man is. The Munchie Boys were left to wonder what fresh hell awaited them upon returning to this foul ground in a second part that seemed unnecessary, and this one did not disappoint in terms of exceeding their already low expectations. There are bad episodes of SVU, and then there's this week's installment, which achieves lows hitherto reached only once before.
Episode 220: Carmy's Cum To Jesus Moment (S11E21 Torch)
For our 220th episode, the Munchies voted and selected a wild Season 11 SVU which sees the unit inexplicably called to investigate an arson leading them first to suspect streaming TV's It Boy, Jeremy Allen White, who is sporting the most disgusting zit makeup ever imagined, before the investigation shifts to a grief-stricken dad. This one marks the first appearance of Sharon Stone as Jo Marlowe, and makes the savvy Munchie wonder if Benson has seamlessly shifted from BenBot to JoLivia in the few episodes since Cabot left for the Congo.
Episode 219: His Pecs Were Unleashed (S20E1 Man Up)
There are bad dads, and then there’s the one played by Dylan Walsh in the two-parter to kick off Season 20 of Law & Order: SVU. Be prepared for some gnarly stuff. Also, be prepared to watch the seasoned detectives on this unit have no idea how to investigate crimes they’ve been investigating for decades. At least we get some pretty hawt Stone action in the cold open…
MMB Movie Club 00: The Heartbreak Kid (1972)
Who loves ya, baby? That's right, the Munchie Boys do. This month we did an entire bonus Movie Club entry for all of our audience, not just the Munchies on Patreon who get one of these a month.
And we didn't do just any old movie. We did the anti-rom-com that might just have been the origin of cringe comedy, Elaine May's 1972 masterpiece The Heartbreak Kid, starring Munch alums Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd, along with two different Academy Award nominees for their work in this film, Eddie Albert and Jeannie Berlin. Did those two ever earn their nominations here. Wow. Great film. Come along for a blast.
Episode 218: They Don’t Whip Out That Stamp for No One (S12E7 Trophy)
This Season 12er takes us on a wild ride from unionizing dry cleaners, to piss-wielding nurses who just need an early-morning quickie, to militant environmentalists, and finally to the first installment of the Calvin Arliss saga which might have spared us all from the horrors of Baby Boy Doe, but for the fact of a clearly non-legally binding guardianship document. So many wild things happen in this one before it devolves into a weird template for later SVU character development.
Episode 217: Always Be Brewing (S2E17 Folly)
This week's installment really takes the Munchie Boys on a wild ride, starting with a working boy stumble-crashing a wedding in his boxers, dipping its toes in the water with Finnish furniture design and Altoona-style pizza, and finishing with a perp stroking Elliot's hand asking if he's going to protect them. Along the way, we take a voyage through high-end gigolo culture, the world of political donors and ambassadorial appointments, and one of the most extreme instances of folie à deux imaginable for a married couple. This is a classic early season journey where we're a pinball flicked between weird plot points in a way that's truly refreshing after spending so much time in late-season SVU.
Episode 216: She’s Just Kim Novak-ing Bailee Madison (S12E1 Locum)
When an overprotective mom has a second daughter disappear, only to be accused of smothering the second daughter and murdering the first, you know SVU is going to be involved. This one features an aggressively weepy Joan Cusack and some seriously sassy kid work from Bailee Madison. Watch as the entire world gaslights this mom into insanity while she's right about what happened all along. Oh, Liv also turns down a date for no good reason.
Episode 215: God, I Miss Neal Baer (S23E6 The Five Hundredth Episode)
Cold Case comes in with a cold case, and Olivia's ancient history comes screaming into this week's big-round-numbered installment of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. The old friends who join us this week are a welcome sight. Olivia's personal relationship with an older man alluded to in prior episodes, however, was much less welcome, as everyone around her tells her what she needs to hear while she bafflingly ignores their advice and is a real jerk to an old partner in the process.
Episode 214: They Only Serve Beef Grogan-off (S11E15 Confidential)
The Randomizer finally gifted the Munchies with a Season 11 Stablersode, and in classic fashion, our beloved, bechiseled-butt-cheeks boy takes an already convoluted mess of a case, and thoroughly Fs it in the B. Here we see a karate-loving ponzi schemer get off on rubbing out his accountants whenever the market takes a downturn, before passing the episode's baton to his attorney who might have protected her client's confidentiality but certainly did not protect his person.
Episode 213: He’s a Senile Train Perv (S14E8 Lessons Learned)
SVU takes on the tony world of upper-crust prep schools, which would often be quite the turn-off for the Munchie Boys, but an episode that could otherwise have fallen into any number of traps is buoyed by fantastic performances from some heavy hitters. The gloves come off and whoever had it in for prep schools in the Season 14 writers room lucked out and got Charles Grodin, Elliott Gould, Anthony Rapp, and Buck Henry to come in and knock it out of the park in a story focused on an institution that didn't just fail its charges--it serially and systemically sexually abused them.
Episode 212: The Load Distance King Of Lancashire (S21E1 I'm Going To Make You A Star)
When the Randomizer chose an SVU featuring one of the Munchie Boys' all-time favorite actors (Ian McShane) as the Harvey-Weinstein-esque heel in Warren Leight's triumphant return to showrunnerdom, we were understandably excited. While McShane shines, certain choices by said showrunner leave the boys baffled and wishing for what might (should?) have been.
Episode 211: Oh, He Wants to Plumb Her Depths (S23E14 Video Killed The Radio Star)
A shock jock cut from the same cloth as any number of high-profile sexual predators (be they Hollywood execs, former Presidents, or unassuming television hosts) enters the world of SVU, and everyone loses their minds. Or at least forgets how things like logic, character motivations, or professional storytelling would dictate where the episode should go. With plot holes as gaping as the Grand Canyon, this exasperating journey into the world of the undercover triple-crossing faux private eye crime genre will try one's patience while still approaching being fun.
Episode 210: Watch the Voltage, Babe (S7E2 Design)
After nearly four months, the Randomizer finally rolled a Neal Baer-era SVU for us to watch, and despite a slow beginning, "Design" really delivers the wild stuff we love. This episode was supposed to star disgraced former President Donald J Trump as a hot piece of genetic material who's disrupting the mortuary sciences industry. Instead it features a laundry list of famous faces with strange backstories. What kind of madness allows the Munchie Boys to say "electroejaculation" 21 times in a single episode? Listen and find out. We also learn some terrible news about Odafin Tutuola's taste in music. Somehow, this is a crossover episode that terminates in Law & Order "Flaw" (S16E2).
Episode 209: You Don’t Skip off the Curb Because You’re Going to Get Meet Joe Blacked (S23E17 Once Upon A Time In El Barrio)
Realizing they had added an actor to the main cast but given him very little to do in the intervening episodes, vics tangentially related to Velasco via his parish priest back home bring Juárez screaming into this week's installment of SVU. Heavy on Mexico but light on events occurring with a semblance of storytelling logic, this episode bounces back and forth pretty dramatically between what could be called good and bad. Hold onto your cellphones and don't look both ways before you cross the street this week if you want to fit in.
Episode 208: Trial Chief Ghislaine Maxwell (S24E4 The Steps We Cannot Take)
A DIY renovation leads to a kidnapped daughter which leads to yet another case referencing the Ariel Castro and Josef Fritzl kidnapping cases. This one introduces us to notorious welder, Elias Olsen, who we at Munch My Benson first met in his final appearance in "Bad Things" (S24E21). Can Grace Muncy's colorblindness and Fin's Eric Adams impression save us from Graziano fatigue?
Episode 207: I’ve Known Five Boys Who Went JonBenét (S1E21 Nocturne)
Getting kicked back into the Pre-History of SVU could have been jarring for the Munchie Boys, but Nocturne had them speculating that it might have served as a blueprint of sorts for the Neal Baer years. Despite not having guest stars who Adam or Josh knew, this episode really landed a tragic story of long-term abuse begetting another cycle of abuse. We were also thrown into a somewhat lengthy discussion of the McMartin preschool trial fed by the Satanic panic of the mid-'80s (and prosecutorial misconduct, overzealous investigators, bunk leading interviewing of hundreds of children, and wildly unprofessional behavior of people in the media who were literally in bed with the prosecution) thanks to a throwaway line from Cragen.
Episode 206: That’s Not Egg Foo Young on Your Tongue (S24E22 All Pain Is One Malady)
Saddle up as we discuss the fourth part of a five-part mega-crossover event between Laws & Orders Organized Crime and SVU. This week, we wonder if part-time adjunct professorship confers magical powers, while Josh becomes CBS-show curious. We also see Chief McGrath turn the flummoxed dial up to 11, and we see the last time SVU is graced with the presence of Detective Muncy as she's poochied off to the DEA, or DAs office, or something.
Episode 205: It's Not as Dark as the Licorice Hole (S24E21 Bad Things)
The Randomizer (episode.lol--use it!) decided that we didn't have enough on our plate already and gave us a FIVE-PART ORGANIZED CRIME CROSSOVER EVENT to unpack, starting with the second of the five installments (and first of the SVUs), S24E21 Bad Things. Often these unwieldy offerings aren't particularly fun, but despite the fact that a dark story arc keeps getting darker and darker, there's a lot of fun to be had throughout this sprawling ep of SVU.