Munch My Benson: A Law & Order: SVU Podcast

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 theres plenty of fun to be had nonetheless.
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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.

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D...

In yet another hysterical installment from this show, a young woman has the temerity to venture to the big city from her idyllic suburban life and immediately pays the price for that transgression. This being Law & Order: SVU, that price makes her a special victim. Here, a topsharking for hire--don't worry, we didn't know what that meant either--goes sideways real fast because Warren Leight's New York is teeming with monsters, and that's especially true at Wild Yaks shows. Don't worry, though, because Connecticutians do not get off scot-free here. The Big Apple may be scary, but the Constitution State is...

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.

Music:

Divorcio Suave - “Munchy Business”

Thanks to our gracious Munchies on Patreon: Jeremy S, J...

For our first ever Season 27 episode of SVU, we caught a fun ripped-from-the-headlines story that manages to do the impossible. This tale of a serial doula-duper whose escalating fraud eventually lands her in the lap of our heroes has a twist I never saw coming. Michele Fazekas and her writing room have managed to make Olivia Benson seem fresh and interesting. It's good stuff and leaves me optimistic about the direction the show is headed.

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Brantford Doula Defrauder Gets Prison For Breaching Probation - The Brantford Expositor

The Con: Kaitlyn's Baby...

What happens when an accent choice derails an SVU where the initial crime is wrapped up in an open-and-shut murder at minute 19 and becomes a bizarre cold-case-cum-morality-play sans benefit of flashback? Well, the Randomizer selected “Persona” (Season 10, Episode 8), so Adam and Josh found out the hard way. For far from the first time in the run of Munch My Benson, a foreign-born actor plays fast and loose with a wavering accent. This time, the offender was two-time Oscar-nominee Brenda Blethyn, whose presence pulls a certain big gun down from the bench to settle a 34-year-old score. Along the way, the ques...

With the Unit and Liv in some serious transitional waters, IAB Lieutenant Ed Tucker comes in and muddies those waters up something fierce as he draws Liv's new roommate/boyfriend Brian Cassidy into an undercover sting for the Rat Squad to earn him a gold star and re-entry to the hallowed halls of the proper NYPD. Of course, this being the Warren Leight years, Benson and her relationship are put through the ringer, as the 12th Precinct is as dirty as it gets and Cassidy gets caught up in some pretty dicey stuff with a scuzzy cop and his sad...

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.

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Massage Parlors with 'Happy Ending...

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.

Music:

Divorcio Su...

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 un...

What if Carl from Shameless was a homicidal maniac in training? That's the question this episode of SVU poses, and it's the one the Munchie Boys have to wrestle with here. They are also forced to wonder if psychopathy is endemic to a privileged youth and if waffles are the breakfast of choice for youngsters with an unquenchable bloodlust, so this one definitely trods into some weird turf.

Music:

Divorcio Suave - “Munchy Business”

Thanks to our gracious Munchies on Patreon: Jeremy S, Jaclyn O, Amy Z, Diana R, Tony B, D...

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 Su...

This week's episode 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 'Fucking' Brolin). Lots to see here folks. Lots.

Sources:

A History of Space Sickness: How to Avoid Throwing Up When There is No ‘Up’ - Space Centre UK

Music:

Divorcio Suav...

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...

How bad can a foot fetish get? Pretty bad, apparently...

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.

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Criminal Responsibility of the Frontal Lobe Syndrome...

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 SUPE...

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 waxed poetic about his time on Brighton Beach.

Music:

Divorcio Suave - “Munchy Business”

Thanks to our gracious Munchies on Patreon: Jeremy S, Jaclyn O, Amy Z, Diana R, Tony B, Drew D, Nicky R, Stuart, Jacqi B, Natalie T, Roby...

For Father’s Day, the Randomizer decided to troll dads everywhere with a tale of woe and trauma that sure makes one father look AWFUL. We watched "Redemption In Her Corner" (S21E13) this week. Don’t worry though because plenty of other people get some stink on them too because this is Law & Order: SVU, after all. As per usual, Adam and Josh go down innumerable rabbit holes—trying to figure out just what Liv’s birthday actually is, wondering what Barba was doing in Iowa investigating election fraud for primaries that don’t exist, the origins of the boxing for...

While the later stages of the Neal Baer Era of SVU were often punctuated by whiplash-inducing flips of the script into wild new directions, few episodes start off in as strange a place as this one. In what might just be the only time in this show's nearly 600-episode run, we dive into the world of vampirism.

Yes, vampires.

And don't worry, despite the sad fact that SVU apparently exists in a world where vampires don't actually exist, "P.C." keeps its flag planted in a delirious place where one Special Guest Star tries to make...

With a melange of Ripped from the Headlines story points peppering the subject of this week’s installment, Season 5, Episode 8 “Abomination,” there is A TON for Adam and Josh to talk about, including Matthew Shepard, Lawrence v. Texas, the odious Westboro Baptist Church, the sham that is conversion therapy, and Oscar-nominated actor George Segal. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of talk about what really matters to you: hypotheses on the possibly sketchy operations of East Village gay bars, the evolution of acceptable language in television and film, how insanely problematic the movies of our youth are, in-depth analysis of charact...

This week we watched an aptly titled episode which follows a series of rape allegations against a recently retired basketball star.

In addition to classic Warren Leight Era racism, this is an episode in which Olivia Benson, improbably, thinks it's cool if people are falsely accused of rape in a shameless bid to end a black man's endorsement deal. We are also treated to some terrible accent work and to newly minted Detective Carisi's delightful mustache and Staten Islander pizza choices.

Music:

Divorcio Suave - “Munchy Business”

Thanks to our gracious Munchies on P...

We're dropping the second Munchies' Choice episode from back in 2022. And for this one, the Munchies chose one for us to excoriate--S19E13 The Undiscovered Country, or Barba's ignominious exit.

***Munchies' Choice***

When we asked our listeners to select an episode for us to watch, we were asking for a choice as depraved and cruel as this, the episode that see beloved ADA Rafael Barba exit the show in ridiculous (and frankly, insulting) fashion. This episode has everything--if by 'everything' you mean bad acting, nonsensical writing, bizarre plot holes, and Phillip Winchester...

The Randomizer (episode.lol) spat out the final episode of the disastrous Michael Chernuchin Era, which meant the Munchie Boys were force-fed the final part of some serialized content. Of course, here, this means we have long-time series regulars acting entirely uncharacteristically, including characters we'd known for 20 years. Perhaps more importantly, this episode eschews all common sense, asking society to act insanely in addition to its characters. This episode brings a season to a close that almost killed the series, and it's bad enough that Adam and Josh have to ask if it shouldn't have been put down.

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Adam and Josh rolled the dice this week, and the dice gave them "Glasgowman's Wrath" (Season 16, Episode 6), which might be the only Halloween episode in the SVU catalogue. Who or what is a Glasgowman? Why is he wrathful? Is it GGG to act out a violent tawdry rape fantasy in a public space? How does any of this pertain to legendary plane crasher Sully Sullenberger? Take a (not 500 mile) walk with us as we breakdown this particularly bizarre example of the modern police procedural.

FYI: Josh was hiding out in a concrete bunker in an attempt to evade...

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...

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 t...

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...

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.

Music:

Divorcio Suave - “Munchy Bus...

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...

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.

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The Munchie Boys sit down with Neal E. Fischer, the author of the brand new book Law & Order SVU: Confidential, an essential companion piece to the show you know and love. We get the straight dope on how the book came together, his process, and his mental health after watching every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit over the course of a few months. We also chat about his other creative endeavors, including his podcasts Triviality and Curated by Chance, his other books (like Being Patrick Swayze), and his work as a filmmaker.

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