Our first ever Season 26 episode answers a question I've never asked: what is to be done with all those VR headsets Silicon Valley tried to force on us before they forced AI on us? The answer is: so that bad dads can teach their teenaged sons about the birds and the bees by forcing them to watch brutal POV strangulation porn which in turn leads to a series of assaults on teen girls. We also meet Detective Kate Silva for the first time on MMB and wish we'd been watching the episode happening in a parallel timeline about the playground footlicker instead.

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.

After a supremely messed up Munchies' Choice episode last week, we settled back into the late season doldrums with an SVU that seems deadset on being racist against both Italians and West Virginians while wallowing in a domestic violence case that ends badly in a bathtub. Is it believable that the character who meets his maker would have been taking a bath? Were there more inventive or contemporary ways to take out the abuser? Probably not, but why focus on wanting this ep to make sense? Fin is also left to pick up the pieces from his S21 officer-involved shooting, which means that the Munchie Boys have to wade back into the morass of semi-serialized procedurals to watch as the pieces are picked up from a story from which we probably could have been spared.

Let's get weird with a SUPER early episode recorded before Adam and Josh had dropped an episode. Here, they wrestle with GHB, a reality in which Benson was in a sorority, the continued mistreatment of the homeless, super rapey college bars staffed by enabling deviants, exposition machine Michelle Monaghan, miscast body types for collegiate swimmers, theories of the genesis of Christopher Meloni's entrée into Wet Hot American Summer, and apocryphal baseball lore which can only mean one thing: they watched "Consent," Episode 10 from Season 2 of Law & Order: SVU.

In our first Munchies' Choice episode back from the break, we were gifted a delightful stunt-cast-isode featuring one of the true titans of stage and screen. Yes folks, this SVU features none other than the modern voice of Shaggy Rogers himself, Matthew Lillard, in a, how shall we say, difficult role for him opposite some nobody casting pulled in off the street named Carol Burnett. We also see not Judge Al Bertuccio get defenestrated into a parked car, Fin casually dropping slang from the 1930s into conversation, and the writers' room creating new ethnic slurs from scratch. This one gets a hearty recommendation. Fantastic stuff all around!

What this delightful episode of SVU 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-Margret 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! There’s so much fun in this episode you're going to have to just dive in and revel in the madness.

In a raucous ride filled with twists and turns that only the Neal Baer years of SVU can deliver, the Unit first catches a dead baby in a bag in a gutter and ends up with two different perps going down for two very different crimes one of which is ripped from not one, but two different headlines. Featuring dives into West Nile Virus, the origins of the UK's Anatomy Act 1832, and subdermal tubes filled with other people's blood used to juke blood tests, this one has a lot going on, and that has nothing to do with how this Season 5, Episode 5 "Serendipity" will forever reframe how you look at honey.

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!

As we are getting back into the swing of recording again, the Randomizer blessed us with a bonkers Season 2 episode of SVU which features misplaced Jets fandom, Cuban Stars baseball lore, and the Bruneian consular website. In Legacy, an extremely bad mom beats and rapes her daughter with a brush to garner sympathy points while blaming her ex-husband, who everyone initially believes did it due to racism. Watch as this mom dismantles family after family on her way to the clink. Also, enjoy how friend of the show, A-List celebrity Jimmy Kimmel, continues to dominate the news cycle in which we recorded this episode.

It's been a while folks, but the Munchie Boys are officially back on the horse. No, not H. The figurative horse that having a child can buck you from. And how are Adam and Josh repaid for their long overdue return to actively podcasting about Law & Order: SVU? Well, once you move past the fact that they basically had a three-minute commercial for the podcast on primetime network television, they had to watch an episode that avid gamer Ice-T has since distanced himself from. Yes, it's time to revisit Gamergate, one of the dumbest incidents in our timeline that somehow seems more and more germane to the world in which we live with each passing day.

Adam's Paternity Leave ends next week, so get some bad mom action up in this joint.

When the Randomizer selects a late-season SVU, there is often a concern that sets in that we might not be getting the best of the insanity that SVU has to offer. That concern was UNFOUNDED with regards to “Motherly Love” (S18E10)—which is a banger in every sense of the word. After having seen nearly 500 episodes of SVU and recorded now 77 episodes of a podcast about the show, it’s safe to say that the Munchie Boys have been subjected to some unimaginably shocking things, yet this episode still dropped their jaws with its brazen impropriety.

So listen as Adam and Josh revel in a truly disturbing exploration of motherhood in its darkest form. This episode is as good an exemplar as any when trying to describe why this podcast exists.

Adam's Paternity Leave is nearly over, but while we still have a couple weeks left, let's look at the last of a pair of episodes featuring a very tall Emmy winner of yore.

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.

Adam's Paternity Leave is near its end, but while we still have a few weeks left of it, let's look at the first of a pair of episodes (we'll pick up the second installment next week) featuring a key Emmy presenter from last night.

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.

Adam's Paternity Leave continues, but there's light at the end of the tunnel, so let's get conspiratorial.

What happens when a quaint little ripped-from-the-headlines Law and Order: SVU plot becomes a raging storm of insanity that sweeps the nation and leads a ragtag mob of jet ski dealers, realtors, and Neo-Nazi extremists to invade the United States Capitol? Well, the Munchie crew does their level best to answer this question and many many more as they watched "Real Fake News" (s18e17). Do you want to know what a teenaged Adam was watching at 1 in the morning on Austin cable access? Are you intrigued by the concept of a hot pot fusion restaurant that fully immerses you in a 4D psychedelic experience? Are you ready to mainline some pro-MSG propaganda and get fully Umamipilled? Everything they told you is a lie, unless, of course, they told you to fire up this hot Munch My Benson.

Adam's Paternity Leave continues, so why not cross the jump right back to where the Randomizer kicked us out to immediately after we did the three-part mega-Cragenisode?

Praise be to the SVU Gods and the Randomizer because this week's Munchstallment “Russian Brides” has it all. The seventh ep from season 13 not only thrusts a rusty Captain Cragen into undercover duty for the first time since before Cabot and Amaro were born, but it also traumatizes you with way-too-specific details as to what our vic went through before perishing. Add to that the unrealized prospect of high-end koozies, the irony of nicknaming a neighborhood Odessa by the Sea when the O.G. Odessa is in fact by the sea, a journey into the daunting world of the vory v zakone, and the fact this this episode feeds directly into the huge three-parter we just spent the past three weeks poring over, and you've got the recipe for a very tasty Cragenisode with a blini and a heaping portion of Captain Don's bottomless pit of sorrow.

Adam's Paternity Leave continues, so why not walk down the path that imperils Captain Don Cragen more than any Captain should be.

The cliffhanging Season 13 Finale “Rhodium Nights” is an episode that belongs in the pantheon of SVU entries, featuring what has to be the most memorable ending in the entire series. This wild ride takes us down a slew of odd paths, including discoveries of Rollins’s economic beliefs, explorations into load volume, lamenting meddlesome US foreign policy, and travel recommendations for border towns. There’s TONS to talk about in this one, which is a truly shocking installment of television.

Adam's Paternity Leave continues, so let's get dark and problematic this week.

Mere weeks after covering its successor in the Baby Doe Parentage Saga, the Randomizer selected “Undercover Mother” (Season 16, Episode 15) for the Munchie Boys to cover.  Undercover Mother is frankly an insufficient moniker to give this episode, as another mother goes undercover for our undercover mother, along with most of the rest of the Unit. Insanity reins supreme as SVU’s undercover op interferes with Declan Murphy’s own undercover op, one in which he’s working on taking down the brutal Johnny D but not without showing that he’s in so deep that he’s basically a human trafficker himself. We talk the careers of Lili Taylor and Donal Logue, the history of the defunct Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, Eric Adams’s purported sleep schedule, SVU’s love for undercover ops, and much, much more.

Adam's Paternity Leave continues, so we're going to dive into the brainmelty world where actors from the The Wire invade SVU and throw us all into a tizzy, as they occupy a shared universe.

It is a wonder that "Underbelly" passed NBC's Standards and Practices Department for any number of reasons. It sexually objectifies real-life 14-year-olds, it is extremely racist, it makes offhand references to piss play, and it takes us on a mind-bending Pynchonian journey to an interzone where The Wire both exists and does not exist depending on the exact placement of John Munch on the Eastern Seaboard. Join Josh and Adam as they unravel a bizarre case involving Stabler, Munch, Sister Peg, Beck (wait who?), and the cast of Season 4 of The Wire and learn about vintage Ferrari pricing, chemical spills in Nunavut, and the mating behaviors of 40-something divorced Dads.

Adam's Paternity Leave continues, so why not get down with the second of two wildly problematic Jeremy Irons episodes?

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.

Adam's Paternity Leave continues, so why not get down with some wildly problematic Jeremy Irons episodes?

Super famous Oscar-, Emmy-, and Tony-winning actor Jeremy Irons sashays through this week’s wonderfully messed up episode of SVU—S12E13 Mask. He attempts to reckon with his out-of-control Cape Cod Summer o’ Sex two decades prior. Of course, if it comes up in the course of an investigation on this program, you know the effects are still being felt of his indiscriminate adulterous boning of everything that moved in Falmouth, and this time, they’ve gotten his daughter and her lover attacked.

This gleeful voyage into the world of sexual addiction is fertile ground for plenty of discussion about such subjects as: parsing the paradoxical simultaneous adoration of Tony Blair and loathing of George W. Bush, tattoo critique, teen boys having pervdar, the strange ol’ days of Spice, summers on the Cape (and the corresponding nighttime water temps), the Kamadeva, and the broad, beautiful spectrum of paraphilias. Turns out, there’s tons of fun to be had when Jeremy Irons is a recovering sex addict trying to get his addiction codified in the DSM-5.