Episode 265: Elliot Measures Time in Baby Formula Bottles (S6E2 Debt)
The Unit wrestles with the seamy underbelly of human trafficking, sweatshop labor, and sketchy lawyers in an episode that puts Huang to work.
Along the way we're treated to a mail-order marriage-to-be having the lies it was built upon exposed, knock-off Birkin bags, and transport mix-ups to Rikers in a trip through Chinatown where DVDs are counterfeited, the mail-order bride world is getting a spruced-up business model, and Elliot thinks a single Chinese mother of two working in sweatshops would gladly leave her infant alone with her six-year-old sister in the apartment for days to chill with her new guy.
Episode 21: Oh, Quaaludes, Cue Adam’s Drug Dive (S18E9 Decline and Fall)
With a ripped-from-the-headlines story owing to none other than serial dosing rapist Bill Cosby, Adam and Josh covered the disgusting territory laid out in Episode 9 from Season 18, “Decline and Fall.” If you’re wanting to hear the most repugnant filth spewing forth from the septuagenarian warden from The Shawshank Redemption, being forced to imagine him engaging in coitus repeatedly, while having Prezbo’s biography recontextualized by an episode of Law & Order: SVU, this is the episode for you.
Episode 264: It Looks Like She's About To Die On The Oregon Trail (S19E10 Pathological)
When a Grandma Sheila dream segues into the case of a girl who has been Munchausen-by-proxied into a severe learning disability, you can guess that we caught a Michael Chernuchin episode.
Eventually, the girl kills her bad mom with a hammer which causes bad Barba to rear his ugly head to intentionally force a mistrial to ensure that this episode was a waste for everyone involved, especially the viewers.
Episode 61: Seems Like a Weird Side Hustle for Washed-Up Catchers with Bad Knees (S8E2 Clock)
The Randomizer gifted us with another standout bad dads episode of Law And Order: SVU ("Clock" S8E2), wherein a young, but not criminally young, girl with mosaic Turner's Syndrome concocts an elaborate scheme to run away from her Canada curious father and into the arms of her proto-pedo lover. Of course we have plenty to talk about including abhorrent British comedy troupes and Yankees games from the mid-Aughts. Munch Away!
Episode 263: Staten Island Alibi (S26E19 Play With Fire (Part 2))
Oh, a crossover episode. Great...
Picking up the crossover-y pieces from an episode of Law & Order: Proper, the Munchie Boys are left to deal with an SVU wherein most of the interesting developments happened outside of their purview. This one spends a lot of time lamenting the death of a one-time kidnapping victim from a seminal ep of SVU, but we're also left to wade through dirty cops, stolen spent rubbers, priest red herrings, and the harrowing world of exploited and abused immigrants. The legacy of this show is also put under the microscope, as the future of the victims SVU finds justice for is painted in a rather dim light.
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!
Episode 113: You Can Really Tell that Dean Porter Wanted to Take Liv’s Basal Temperature with His Meat Thermometer (S11E6 Spooked)
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.
Episode 63: When You’ve Killed that Many People, You Have to Shop at Banana Republic (S5E11 Escape)
If you were expecting a nuanced take on the damage that prisons cause to those inside coming from in "Escape" (S5E11), you might be disappointed. In this SVU, two ex cons buy their way out of the joint, galavant around the town in drag, and take Olivia Benson to the Jersey Shore. We meet one of Liv's former paramours, decide whether or not unfortunate early '00s fashion choices were the result of America's imperialist adventures overseas, and listen as Adam summons an ancient one.
Episode 254: Pavlov's Limp Dogs (S1E11 Bad Blood)
When the son of an influential right-winger is found beaten to death and drenched in semen, red herrings abound until we learn the shocking truth.
That truth is that the Munchies are in the throes of a full on Cassidissance. Our boy Mayhem keeps his head throughout this Season 1 attempt to tackle the time-honored debate as to whether a criminal's nature causes them to commit heinous acts, or whether the terrible environment they were nurtured in is more to blame. I'm not sure the philosophy works, but there's plenty of fun to be had nonetheless.
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.
Episode 133 - Elliot Can't Get Drinks Because He Might Have HIV (S2E13 Victims)
The Munchie Boys tackled a tough one this week, as Stabler is forced to investigate the murder of an admittedly odious perp he'd locked up previously. If ever there were an episode that wallowed in the "you can't choose your victims" edict, it's this one. "Victims" also has some pretty big names in it to go along with some pretty rough pre-9/11 fashion and a Guardian Angels storyline that gives Adam a bit to talk about.
Episode 57: This Is Kind of Peak Hand Job (S21E7 Counselor, It’s Chinatown)
This week the Munchie boys watched “Counselor, It’s Chinatown” (S21E7) a wildly inappropriate Law and Order: SVU which has Josh and Adam careen from such wildly disparate topics as: Is noted scumbag Chris D'Elia is a cardigan guy? Which professions suffered most during the Chinese Cultural Revolution? And, does the NYPD have an undercover dog requisition service? We'll rub and tug our way to the bottom of these and many, many more questions. Sadly, due to climate change, there is a lot of Max on this one.
Episode 250: You Gotta Have A Hot Pile (S14E3 Twenty-Five Acts)
This week the Munchies chose an episode in which Adam "Gamergate" Baldwin introduces us to everyone's favorite ADA, Raphael Barba. Rollins, Munch ,and Amaro start a book club about the hottest new chic-bondage-lit sensation, Twenty-Five Acts, whose author turns out not to be the author which doesn't prevent her from being raped by a terrible talk show host, who shockingly is not a cabinet member in our current administration. As the pièce-de-résistance, Barba engages in a little inculpatory choke play to guarantee his first high-profile conviction as a member of the unit.
Episode 48: I Made This Kid with My Sperm (S3E3 Stolen)
After Adam tells of his travails in the Texas winter storm and ensuing power outages, the Munchie Boys get down to business, reckoning with the ghost of series past while persevering through an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit featuring a robot child mimicking human emotion stuck in the strangest of custody battles in “Stolen” (S3E3). While dealing with a bonafide Cragenisode courtesy of his former partner Max Greevey’s cold case getting tossed in the microwave, Adam and Josh also dive into post-9/11 SVU credits, do some height detective work, walk the Appalachian Trail with Mark Sanford, and unearth a fictional Juris Doctor degree. They also follow up on last week’s promise to watch and talk about the late ‘90s truckin’ Swayze gem, Black Dog.
Episode 129: Man, This One Really Suffers from My Own Special Victims Unit Derangement Syndrome (S4E23 Grief)
Elliot meets another father of a daughter, only the other father's daughter just died in an alley having just been sodomized and humiliated, meaning there's some sympathy pain for Stabes to experience. These fathers are both on a tear, and it's hard to say who does more damage in this one. Needless to say, if Stabler’s getting reprimanded by Cabot for helping a suspect, things are topsy-turvy in Dadland. Of course, this being Munch My Benson means there are tangents, including what kind of bets a college kid could have made to dig himself a $5K hole on the 2003 Super Bowl and a dive into the NYPD's heinous brutality done unto Abner Louima, so hold onto your butts.
Episode 248: Always Check Your Surroundings for Corpses Before You Pop the Question (S10E4 Lunacy)
This week's SVU starts with a mutilated corpse found in the Hudson then heads out on a wild ride from amateur porn shoots to borderline psychotic astronomy fans. We also learn the deep mystery behind Dickie Stabler's name, and we see Elliot's faith in his boyhood heroes get shattered like the glass display case into which he throws Big Dick Finley (James 'F**king' Brolin). Lots to see here folks. Lots.
Episode 69: Modine Totally Should've Been in a Red Shoe Diaries (S6E17 Rage)
In this exercise in somewhat effective stunt-casting, Stabler gets pitted against his untethered analog, a rage-fueled annihilator of tween girls played by erstwhile star actor Matthew Modine. Yes, this week, the Munchie Boys took on “Rage” (SVU S6E17). In a structurally odd episode that pits rager against rager in a ticking-clock, nearly locked-room scenario until it suddenly isn’t and renders much of what preceded moot, Stabler tries to nab the one who got away while confronting his own anger management issues. Don’t worry, there’s also talk of malodorous food PsyOps, truly pornographic whistling, edging, the nature of the San Fernando Valley, Modine’s inability to shed his yuppie prick veneer, and so much more.
Episode 247: Munch Has a Shoe Map of Manhattan (S4E16 Tortured)
The Tibetan Freedom Movement, haute couture boots, Green Card marriages, and extreme foot fetishism all collide in this classic grab-bag installment of SVU. A couch ends up being at the center of the action in this episode, which we'll all assume got the sitting Vice President of the United States all hot and bothered. We also have a stealthy very bad mom in the mix, which makes us question everything about small business owners.
Episode 103: You Gotta Give People Some Cold Cucumber Water While You Rub Their Joint Down (S14E22 Poisoned Motive)
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.
Alexandra Eames also pops up in this episode, which means there’s a little bit of Criminal Intent’s history to deal with, and there are a ton of guest stars with SUPER WEIRD backgrounds which lead us to speaking about whether bands could have been around to have songs on the Iron Eagles II soundtrack, bathing beauty contests, Carmelo Anthony’s very public and extremely inconsiderate birthday present to his wife, and another truly wild IMDb self-penned biography. This one starts wild and ends wilder in ways you wouldn’t have predicted.
Episode 246: He Prefers To Be Called Mr. Dozer (S1E12 Russian Love Poem)
This week, The Randomizer gifted us with the full Season 1, Sex Crimes, experience.
Were there wildly salacious, sexual details? Check. Was there an unnecessary amount of esoteric racism? Obviously. Was there a heavily featured banana in a butt? Yes there was. We also get whisked along on Adam's memory lane as he waxes poetic about his time on Brighton Beach.