(Sorry, reader. Despite promises to the contrary, it took two months to get around to this...)
Just in case you were wondering, the tip to knowing whether or not the episode of SVU you are about to watch is a good one is easy:
If the episode description on the digital cable guide starts with the words "A boy is raped," you are golden.
But then again, every episode of SVU is a good one, isn't it?
Now, the cross that the episode Hardwired has to bear is that it shows us a disturbing side to Detective-cum-Teacher Roland Pryzbylewski that paints the latter seasons of "The Wire" in a new light.
Initially, Prezbo's decision to leave the police force to teach in the Baltimore Public School system seems like an honorable one. Sure, he was facing suspension from the force, but it seemed like he was on the right track. As he grew and apparently evolved during his trial by fire, it seemed like he was one of the good ones, reaching out and helping out his students in crisis like Randy and Dukie and becoming the heart and soul of perhaps the most powerful season of "The Wire," the penultimate one.
As is unearthed in Hardwired, Prezbo was a pedophile all along. He married Gloria after she won on "Jeopardy" and left Woody Boyd. The marriage was clearly one of convenience, as he cared little for the woman who knew loads of food starting with the letter "Q" and much more for her adolescent son Corey. As the Caucasian-with-no-vertical's ex realizes that Prezbo has been drugging her to diddle her now-chlamydia-ridden son, it becomes obvious that Prezbo (who now goes by Thomas) was treating his students well only to be able to leverage those favors for sexual favors.
What is even more disturbing, though, is his friendship with the descendant of Mr. Wolcott from "Deadwood." This man, who also tried to kill Michael Westen in the season finale of "Burn Notice," is a supreme creep, just like his hooker-slaughtering ancestor. Wolcott's great-great-grandson, Kevin O'Donnell, is the leader of a NAMbLA wannabe organization, Our Special Love, who claim that pedophilia is a disease that they are being persecuted for. He also oozes sleaze and made Prezbo tape himself boning his step-son to gain admittance into his club.
Corey takes one for the team, electing to help the police bust the Big Fish to save other kids, but Gloria, who had been homeless in between her impressive win on "Jeopardy" and married Pryzbylewski, ultimately ends up loosing her shit (not without ample justification) and stabs her husband as he is getting taken away.
Thankfully for Gloria, an especially comely Benson works her magic with Cabot, gets her released with a desk appearance ticket, and they commence their massive pedophile arrest sweep, during which Hargitay gets to utter the historic line, "That's the least of your problems, baby raper."
And on that note, this installment of Munch My Benson comes to an end, as the episode itself probably should have because there may not have been a higher point in the history of network television than when those words crossed the lips of Mariska Hargitay.
I think we all already know that Ice-T is the G.O.A.T., but even I was impressed by his most recent twitter feud with "pop star" Aimee Mann. Apparently, the "singer" doesn't think much of MY man's acting chops. I'll let the tweeting do the talking:
DAMMMMMMMMMNNNNNNNNN!!!! There is a lesson here; don't mess around with Oda-fuckin'-fin Tutuolo . It goes without saying that the Village Voice deemed it the "greatest single tweet of all time."
Clearly, the problem with slackers starting an impossibly witty blog about a program of unparalleled excellence such as "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" is that there is bound to be a shocking lack of follow-through in its execution. I think the fanbase of Munch My Benson has been clamoring for far too long for more content without any payoff to speak of. For that, I assure you we are all deeply sorry.
Perhaps the growth of this blog was stunted by the countless hours amassed whilst enrapt in tales of incest, kidnapping, child abuse, torture, murder, and rape got to us temporarily. After all, spending 10-20 hours in front of the television watching one series cannot be good for anyone. Regardless, I am ready to get back on the horse, even though I don't have the money for a saddle, and I hope this spurs my fellow Munchers to put their private bits in danger and hop back on that mighty steed that is Munch My Benson.
Also, I would like to direct your attention to our new links section. Within that section, you will find a link to the kind ladies and gents over at The Blogulator, who have been very supportive of this blog from its onset. There are also links to some of the other sites of Munch My Benson's authors, including the brand spanking new Drop It Like It's Todd, which is sure to take the world by storm.
So while I've not got the time this afternoon to write a sprawling piece about the redefinition of another cherished part of my childhood at the hands of another amazing episode of SVU, I do have the time to blow your mind. Prepare yourselves for Muppet Munch, Muppet Cragen, Muppet Stabler, and Muppet Benson.
Hopefully this is the beginning of you and I making up. Expect more content throughout the next week, and I'll not disappoint. If you want the rest of the authors to pick up the pace, then hassle them endlessly. They will surely cave to the peer pressure. After all, we all really want more lesbo-tastic entries from softitems, am I right?
I will be the first to admit (and I’m presumably not alone based on the various facebook groups created in support of the newest Tonight Show host) that I am completely enamored by this whole Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno issue currently going on with NBC. I check E!’s website on a daily basis. Prior to this week, I rarely checked updates on there, but I’ve become a regular. [Many of you are probably thinking that discussing this is leaving the realm of SVU and potentially opening the door to other discussions (not related) down the road, but this will impact our beloved show as SVU is one of the shows that would help fill the vacant time slots currently (and soon formerly) filled by Leno.]
For the sake of full disclosure, I am fully on the side of Conan O’Brien. I have always found Jay Leno to be 100% unfunny. While I was far too young to fully understand that situation (being all of 6 or 7 years old when this all happened), I recognize David Letterman as the “should have been” heir apparent to TheTonight Show throne. Jay Leno was a relatively unknown comedian who stole what was rightfully Letterman’s.
So, Letterman moved to CBS and his Late Show with David Letterman has become a safe haven for those of us who find the right kinds of things funny. Anything on Leno’s Tonight Show that people found funny (which I will admit does happen on occasion) are not moments which Leno himself created, rather, are moments he “facilitates” on his show. Leno has long been inadequate in his ability to produce interviews worthy of the guests that he often had booked on his show.
I can remember watching Johnny Carson’s last show as host, and I can remember at an early age not finding Jay Leno particularly funny. David Letterman had the early edge in the ratings until Leno landed the first post-hooker interview with Hugh Grant. That’s the interview that leapt Leno into the rankings lead, and NBC has seemingly ridden the coat tails for years regardless of the fact the Leno is obviously an inferior host when it comes to actually being able to direct guests in interviews (which has become even more obvious since The Jay Leno Show was created).
While my distaste for Jay Leno has been displayed, I will advance this discussion to the present…
Let’s hop into our DeLorean’s and travel back five years. Conan O’Brien signed a contract with NBC that guaranteed O’Brien The Tonight Show in 2009. Apparently, when 2009 rolled around, Jay Leno was not ready to retire and drive one of his dozens of collector cars into the sunset. This past summer, Conan took the reins of The Tonight Show and the NBC execs (along with Leno) created The Jay Leno Show which would be set to start in the fall (of 2009).
When The Jay Leno Show aired, it was awful. I’ve attempted to watch the show on a handful of occasions, and it has been unbearable. He’s not funny. He never was funny. Those who find him funny must suffer from some sort of mental disability. Meanwhile, Conan has produced a product equivalent to what put him on the map almost two decades ago.
There have been articles written since this whole debacle happened claiming that NBC executives pleaded for Conan to update his show to appease many traditional Tonight Show fans, and that he refused to accept their suggestions and continued with the product that got him to where he was, but whether that happened or not, only insiders can say. Suffice it to say, Conan still is his quirky self. Younger fans still are attracted to his style and his humor. We’ve grown up with his writing on Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons (regardless of whether we realized it or not) and of course his years hosting Late Night.
The actual details of what has unfolded between O’Brien, Leno, and the wigs at NBC can be found on any number of websites, so I don’t feel it necessary to repeat them all here. A stripped down account is that NBC called it quits on The Jay Leno Show because local affiliates were not happy with the ratings they were getting following the switch. NBC announced that they would not cancel Leno’s show, but instead, they would cut his show from a full hour to a half hour show, and move it to 10:35 CST. Consequently, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon would both be moved back a half an hour. Oh, and I guess Last Call with Carson Daily is still on, but honestly does anyone watch that show?
All I’ll say is that everything said this past week by all involved has been comedic gold. Letterman has been funny. Jimmy Kimmel has really put himself on the map (especially with his appearance on The Jay Leno Show to which the entire video can't be found on NBC's website). Conan has been great (including putting the show up for sale on craigslist and discussing possible porn titles if he accepts the industry's offer). He knows that he’s going down, so he’s decided to go down swinging. Leno is the only one who hasn’t really been doing much. He’s the butt of every joke, and he’s tried to get involved and be a good sport, but he has ended up looking even worthless than he ever has. Now, to be fair, I don’t think Leno started this whole thing. He’s become involved, but NBC execs started it, and Leno couldn’t just take the side of Conan.
While I am completely on Conan’s side with everything, I actually think Conan would benefit from a move. Were Conan to have accepted the time slot move, he would be even more attractive to the fans who fell in love with him on Late Night. Conan attracts younger age groups (which would include myself). People our age who watch late night programming regularly watch The Daily Show and Colbert Report. Speaking from personal experience, I don’t watch Conan as much because what I always enjoyed was his monologue, which happens to coincide with Colbert. If Conan were to move back a half hour to 11:00, I would watch him more, and I don’t think I am at all alone.
There are rumors that Conan and NBC have agreed to an “exit strategy” that could be announced as early Sunday, so we’ll see. One thing is for certain…Conan O’Brien is done as the host of The Tonight Show. His most likely landing spot will be FOX, a network which has never been able to secure a sizeable slice of the late night programming (the closest they ever got was with Arsenio Hall). If FOX were able to land Conan, they could make a huge statement in late night. If he decides to get out of late night, I would assume he would get back into writing like he did back in the day, but you’d have to think his preference is hosting a late night program.
Regardless of what happens, this next week should be fun to watch…
All right, I'm going to break from form a little bit here.
It could be said that I tend to focus on the guest stars, and there will be some talk here about a guest star. However, this episode needs to be written about.
It's not often that I am left trying to put my world back together after an episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," but the finale from Season 10, Zebras, fucked my ass up.
The episode kicks off with a father and daughter rollerblading* in Central Park. The dad running into a railing and going head-first into a bush, from which he comes out covered in blood despite showing no visible cuts. That blood is from a murdered woman, who has the word guilt scrawled across her forehead in blood.
*I know, I know, rollerblading is so 1994, but if you saw this guy's get-up, you would understand why someone would be on rollerblades in this day and age (no, it wasn't Chris Klein).
Within a few TV minutes, the crew at SVU has interviewed a Parks and Recreation supervisor who points them towards a schizophrenic young man who is either: a) Ben Hawkins's grandson*, or b) Zombie Bobby Kent from Bully. This dude is batshit crazy, and totally killed this innocent mother walking her strollered (yeah, I'm making up words here, but you know what I'm saying, right?) child through Central Park because she was an "operative" who wouldn't heed his command to "abort her mission."
*I mean it couldn't be Ben Hawkins, could it? Sure, he had some special biblically-tinged powers, but I doubt he was immortal. If he was in his early-20s in the Dust Bowl circa 1934, it is safe to assume (barring the aforementioned immortality possibility) that this would be his grandson. After all, with Sophie dragging a not-dead Brother Justin off at the end of "Carnivale," it doesn't seem like Ben Hawkins was going to have a chance to settle down and start a family for at least a few years, placing the birth of his first child no earlier than 1940 by conservative estimates. It would be a stretch to expect his great-grandson being born in 1979. Especially given their familial responsibilities.
While Detectives Benson and Stabler trick Ben Hawkins III into coming down to fill out a form, a search warrant is fetched. With the warrant in hand, Munch, Tutuola, and spastic CSU Tech Dale Stuckey recover the murder weapon from a boot in the suspect's closet. When the knife is brought back to the lab, everyone's favorite Forensics Tech, Ryan O'Halloran matches the blood on the knife to the victim. Just as Stabler thinks their case is made, Zombie Bobby Kent's lawyer makes her way into the lab, where she peruses the paperwork and finds that Stuckey logged the knife in on the same voucher number that the evidence collected at the murder scene was listed on, so the evidence won't be admissible due to the potentiality of contamination.
In court, the inappropriate fuck-up Dale Stuckey tries to impetuously argue that he didn't contaminate the evidence, to which Angela Bower scoffs and tells him to check himself before he wrecks himself.
As Munch and Fin follow the skating murderer, he slips them at Coney Island (was he trying to hook up with the Warriors?), and another body turns up, only this time there is a soda can with Ben III's bloody fingerprint on it at the scene. When Stabler and Fin follow a lead yielded by Munch reaching out to his paranoid ex-wife, they find Hawkins, but his lair is booby trapped with a homemade poisonous gas that almost kills them.
They finally get a call from his scared shitless lawyer, Julia Zimmer, who has an enraged murderer in her office ranting about betrayers and CIA mind control. As they are leaving the parking ramp with Zombie Bobby in the backseat, Zimmer is set to follow in her car. Unfortunately for her, that car is not going anywhere. It fills with the same gas from the lair, and Zimmer dies trapped in her car.
When CSU gets to the ramp, Elliot hands the perp off to a uni, and instructs him to
Take zombie boy off to the prison ward at Bellevue. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
So I guess we've got our answer as to his identity. Since he died in the swamps of Florida, I'm going to assume that voodoo was involved, a la Weekend at Bernies 2.
The thing is with Zombie Boy in custody, the revenge keeps coming. Angela Bower sits on a syringe filled with Potassium Chloride while being advised to stay in a hotel until everything has settled down. Luckily for Jonathan Bower, his mom will be all right. While Benson and Stabler are in the hospital, the results of the DNA test run from a mosquito retrieved from Zimmer's car that will presumably finger Zombie Boy are about to be completed, and Stabler heads off to the CSU Lab to meet up with O'Halloran.
At the CSU Lab, the DNA sequencing is almost done when there's a knock on the door. O'Halloran hollers for Elliot to come in, turns to the computer that has just made its match, and gets met with a knife through his sternum. With O'Halloran lying dead just out of view on the floor, Stabler walks in, asks for O'Halloran, finds that the DNA match wasn't who they thought at all, and gets clubbed over the head with a microscope.
Stabler wakes up to the red-eyed, pasty faced Stuckey staring him crazily in the eyes, who explains how he masterminded everything after the zombie's release to pin a murder on their original suspect in between casual carvings of Stabler's chest with the knife he used to kill O'Halloran. Just as Dale's about to stick the knife into Elliot's chest for good, Liv walks in and driving Stuckey off while Elliot tries to non-verbally implore her to stay away. As she approaches Elliot, who is duct taped to a chair, Stuckey slips in behind her and raises Elliot's gun toward them.
Having given up her weapon at Dale's command, Liv decides that the best thing for her to do would be to seduce that pasty little Canuck (who was clearly crushing hard on her) while playing up a disdain for Elliot punctuated by slapping the shit out of him. As she wears him down, he steps up to shoot Elliot, she gets him to kiss her while Stabler watches. With his back turned to Stabler, Liv gives him the signal, mid-smooch, and Stabler kicks Stuckey in the fucking taint.
Let me say it one more time.
Stabler kicks Stuckey in the fucking taint!
After the righteous taint kicking, Liv disarms Stuckey and gives him an upper-cut with her elbow right to the jaw. Shitbird is out cold, Liv tells Stabler she knew something was up when Stuckey said Elliot had gone out for sushi, and they look over the havoc that dipshit Dale Stuckey hath wrought.
Unfortunately, the death of Ryan O'Halloran could have been prevented if only he and Stabler hadn't been joking when they had the following exchange as it became clear that it was Stuckey's clerical error that was going to cost them the Zombie Boy Case:
O'Halloran: Stuckey. (shakes his head in disbelief) [...] Stabler: I'm gonna kill him. O'Halloran: I'll dump the body. Stabler: Before we add more toxic waste to the Gowanus Canal, I'm gonna try and save this case.
It's too bad they didn't off the little bastard when they had the chance.
Nonetheless, I don't think anyone watching this episode for the first time thought that it was going in this direction, although that could just as easily have been because no one could have believed that the tiny red-eyed halftard Dale Stuckey could have masterminded tying his own shoes, let alone a scheme to pin a quadruple homicide on a paranoid schizophrenic who was locked up while two of them took place.
This episode aired probably about a month ago, but between the end of the school year, the holiday season (see out of town and entertaining visitors), there wasn’t much time to write this entry with the quality it deserves, so here goes…
“Sacrifice” guest starred Mark Paul Goseller as Wesley Janzen and Elizabeth Banks as Jana Janzen.It all starts when Wesley is assaulted and shot outside a bar that has a largely male clientele.At the hospital, they discover that he’s been shot by more than just a gun as three separate DNA specimens are found “in his person.”Stabler and Benson arrive at the hospital to question Wesley, only to find out that he has checked himself out of the hospital.
They go to his apartment and find him in a great deal of distress (since he was shot and left before proper attention could be paid to his wounds).He’s of little assistance initially, but with the agreement that the police won’t say anything to his family, he tells them that although he’s not gay, he participates in “gay-for-bang” porn videos for $1500 per “session”.Apparently his education from Bayside High didn’t open up the doors that other schools did because he has been doing gay porn.
To find out more about his situation, Stabler and Benson show up at Jana’s place of work where they discover SHE’S A PORN STAR TOO!!!*[Mind blown]Not only is Jana at work, but so is her daughter.Social Services is called in, and Wesley’s parents are called in to take temporary custody of the daughter.It turns out that his parents have never approved of his choice in life partner, and Wesley had run off to New York with Jana.
*Elizabeth Banks must have some predisposition to take roles where porn/sex is involved.
While at the porn studio, they meet her director, Cal Oman.Upon first arrival, Oman looks Benson up-and-down and says what all [presumably male] fans have thought for a long time…“You’d be a natural”.It turns out that both Wesley and Jana had been doing porn because their daughter suffers from Cystic Fibrosis and have all sorts of medical bills to pay.Wesley and Jana both disclose that Oman has been bullying them both because he wants Jana to be the next big star, and Wesley has been trying to get them to skip town and make an honest living.They deduce that it was Cal who shot Wesley for trying to take his “star” away from him.
There is only one eye witness to the initial shooting.At the beginning of the episode, Phil is homeless and sober, but by the time they bring him in for a second round of questioning, he’s relapsed and is uncooperative.That’s when Fin has easily the best line of the episode.He and Munch are questioning him, Phil’s freaking out, and Fin pounds on the desk and says “Phil!! Do you want to be a stupid dick or do you want to help us out?!”
The interrogation is interrupted when they get a call that Cal Oman was found shot to death in his office.Wesley is the primary suspect, and he admits to shooting Oman and pleads guilty, but that it was in self defense.Wesley’s prints were on the gun.He confessed to shooting him and pled guilty.Open and shut case.
TWIST!!!
The autopsy showed the exit wounds were in the front, so Oman was running away from the shooter.Jana had shot Oman who was going to send her to Las Vegas for a 24-Hour Sex Marathon and Oman was going to take almost all of the money earned.Jana had arranged for their daughter to go and live with Wesley’s estranged parents.Wesley thought he was providing for his family by admitting guilt and that his daughter would be able to stay with her mother.
They discover all this in time to catch Jana before she was left for Las Vegas where she would continue her honest living. So, Zack and Miri really do make porn, but they do it separately, and she's willing to let Wesley go to prison where he wasn't going to get paid $1500 per "session".
Initially, Prezbo's decision to leave the police force to teach in the Baltimore Public School system seems like an honorable one. Sure, he was facing suspension from the force, but it seemed like he was on the right track. As he grew and apparently evolved during his trial by fire, it seemed like he was one of the good ones, reaching out and helping out his students in crisis like Randy and Dukie and becoming the heart and soul of perhaps the most powerful season of "The Wire," the penultimate one.
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