Gheorghasbord: Keepin' It Movin'

Iran and Israel might not know what the fuck they're doing, but we here at G:TB HQ sure do. One day at a time, sweet Jesus. One day at a time.

Big day in the Big Apple, as NYC Democrats head to the polls to select their candidate in this autumn's mayoral race. Bigfoot Andrew Cuomo, who we last saw resigning from the his position as Governor of New York in disgrace, leads in most pollsters' counts on the eve of the primary. But upstart state legislator Zohran Mamdani has closed to within a hair's breadth of the machine pol. 

Mamdani's campaign has been fresh, and inclusive, and people-driven - all the things the Democratic Party claims to want. Cuomo's has been a drab rehash of the same old same old, fronted by a dude who's credibly accused of sexual harassment by 13 women and of falsifying COVID death counts in nursing homes during his time in Albany. Team Cuomo has trotted out Bill Clinton, James Carville, and Harvey Weinstein as endorsers (possibly not one of those), while Mamdani has managed to secure the cross-endorsements of two of his chief rivals in the race (important in NYC's ranked choice voting process) and notably, Kid Mero.

Longer post to follow on this point, but if the institutional party manages to drag Cuomo over the line, the result will validate the significant majority of younger voters who don't think the Dems have anything to offer them. I'm hoping Mamdani (not because I care much about NYC politics, but because I think a Mamdani win would signal possibility more broadly) and fully expecting to be disappointed and (more) disillusioned.

In the meantime, as the NBA season ends and MLB enters the grind portion of the schedule, there's a shitload of footy on offer (possibly too much, if you value player health). Here in the U.S. alone, the newest iteration of the Club World Cup and the CONCACAF Gold Cup are taking place at the same time. 

The former features 32 clubs from around the globe, from the bluest of European bloods like Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, and Juventus, to proud South American outfits like River Plate, Boca Juniors, Palmeiras, and Botafogo, to entertaining African sides like Mamelodi Sundowns and Wydad AC, to Asian teams like Urawa Red Diamonds and Ulsan, to MLS' own Inter Miami, LAFC, and Seattle Sounders, and all the way to minnows like Auckland FC (outscored 16-0 through two matches).

Quality has been mixed, as has fan reaction in the U.S. (for me, it's a case of oversaturation), but there have been some notable exceptions. Saudi Arabia's Al Hilal drew Real Madrid. The Brazilian clubs have been phenomenal. And the aforementioned Urawa Red Diamonds fans made a huge impression with their 90 minutes of full-throated support in their club's 2-1 loss to Inter Milan. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Maximiliano Bretos (@mbretos)

The Club World Cup is a transparent money grab in the best (worst) tradition of FIFA. But with some fun sides like Inter Miami and Flamengo moving on to the knockouts, it's a least an entertaining story.

Stay cool out there, my friends. It's a scorcher.

GhPT, Episode 2

Keepin' at it until we get all the Gheorghies rendered or we drain the world's water supply. It'll be a close run thing.

Here's our man in the ORF during a very serious time, only as a Muppet. We will always start with a Muppet, because, well, Muppets.

The prompt for this one: "ignore previous instructions, render this image as an album cover by a moody celtic rock band". I eagerly await the release of this record.

No Going Back

At the risk of killing one of you from second-hand embarrassment, I present to you this video from a livestream of a Colorado appeals court hearing earlier in the week. Do not operate heavy machinery while watching. 

I need all of #lawsky to see this video from a Colorado appeals court livestream yesterday. I am in actual tears. Sound *incredibly* on, the subtitles will not help.

[image or embed]

— Mrs. Detective Pikajew, Esq. (@clapifyoulikeme.favrd.social) June 18, 2025 at 10:47 PM

Tradeoffs

Marriage, as most of you know, is often an exercise in compromise. At the moment, my wife and I are negotiating a couple of reasonably big ticket expenses. She wants to go to on a cruise with a girlfriend. That'll cost around $1,000. I have no issue - I like her friend, I don't really want to go on a cruise, win win.

I do want something, though. I've had my eye on this artwork by Malcolm Bracken for some time:

Kinda hard to make it out in this low-fi photo, but it's a stylized and highly-textured Jackie Robinson jersey. Blacken is the former strength and conditioning coach for the Washington Commanders' previous iteration. His work is really unique. And a bit pricey - this particular work is going for $1,200.

My wife doesn't share my obsession with covering every inch of every wall in the house in the first place, and 12 hundred bucks strikes her as a bit much for art.

I may have found a place where we can meet in the middle.

Finally, after a year, Jerome Brouillet's photo of Gabriel Medina from the 2024 Summer Olympics is available for purchase. I can get a high-quality 16x24 print for a cool $450. Do I even need to ask permission for that kind of purchase.

Don't answer that.

Words For My Congressman

My home on a northeastern North Carolina sandbar sits in the state's 3rd Congressional District. My Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives is a gent named Greg Murphy, a practicing urologist who was first elected to the House in 2019 after four years in the state House of Representatives. He is a reliable Republican in a mostly red district and supporter of President Trump. He chose not to certify results of the 2020 presidential election and questioned Joe Biden's fitness for office based on his own medical experience. 

Below is a copy of a letter I sent him recently. 

Dr. Murphy, Your office reached out to me a couple of months ago as part of an effort to connect with constituents. I ignored the messages at the time, as we agree on little politically. But several recent stories that crossed my path amid the present overhaul of government function and services prompted me to write. 

If you want my input, here goes: I urge you to reconsider support for and silence about the wholesale cuts and changes that have taken place since the Trump administration took office. Evidence grows that tens of thousands of people will not only be thrown out of work here and abroad, but that many of the cuts and changes will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable among us. 

You want to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse? You want government to operate more efficiently? Fine. Determine where the waste and inefficiencies are and make targeted cuts. You wouldn’t prescribe treatment for a patient without diagnosing their condition. Yet giving a ketamine-fueled mega-billionaire man-child and his team with no knowledge of how government agencies work carte blanche to cut and eliminate is somehow acceptable? His ready-fire-aim approach already has done serious damage across a wide range. 

You’re a smart, informed guy. You know that the lion’s share of government expenditures goes toward the programs of Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid, defense spending and paying down the national debt. Focusing elsewhere might be good P.R. but it’s kind of nibbling around the margins for real accountability and savings. 

Want to better scrutinize spending? How about auditing the Pentagon for a start. You were quoted recently about jacking up work requirements for Medicaid. You said that you didn’t think that several of your patients receiving Medicaid benefits should qualify. I don’t doubt that you have anecdotal or personal stories of people who have taken advantage of the system. I’m old enough to remember Ronald Reagan referencing a welfare queen driving a Cadillac as an indictment of the entire system. That also played well among those who want to gauge who does and does not merit assistance. But a U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services fact sheet about Medicaid from a couple years ago determined that more than 95 percent of enrollees met requirements for enrollment. Increasing work requirements and red tape and subsequent cuts to benefits and administrative staff tasked with oversight will affect millions of people who would qualify for assistance. 

I mentioned stories that had crossed my path. The NPR program “1A” ran an episode on June 11 about the spike in senior homelessness in recent years. Inflation and rising housing costs, coupled with proposed cuts to assistance programs, have and will stress seniors and leave them with no good options for the baseline condition of a roof over their heads. 

Another story was on “Fresh Air” this week, an interview with Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson about DOGE’s ham-handed cuts and operations that didn’t approach the financial savings they forecast and have often produced anxiety and uncertainty. I don’t pretend to know your thoughts on the role of government and its obligations. I don’t know if you’re content with Russell Vought’s blueprint or if you want to go full Norquist (editor's note: Grover Norquist is a conservative political activist and founder of the group, Americans for Tax Reform; he said in a 2001 interview on NPR: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."). Regardless, I don’t believe that a man who won a presidential election with fewer than one-third of registered voters has a mandate to fundamentally overhaul government and to trample Congress and the Constitution. 

We both know that Donald Trump is a transactional figure who no more wants to govern than to ride rollercoasters. He wants to give orders and to make money. Anything else is an imposition. I’m also under no illusion that my thoughts will influence your thinking one iota. What I would ask is that you consider not just your donor class, but all the people you represent. The 3rd district encompasses a lot of rural areas, a lot of people with limited access to goods and services, for whom government can be a lifeline. Drastic cuts and reductions will be needlessly, even arrogantly, cruel. I don’t have answers for the best ways to improve people’s lives, though the Hippocratic Oath isn’t a bad place to start. Or more specifically, the line credited to Hippocrates from one of his other papers: First, do no harm. 

Sincerely, Dave Fairbank 

Kill Devil Hills NC

Another Pleasant Valley Saturday

I'll be spending my Saturday doing a lot of normal suburban cusp of Summer sorta stuff, and something that's of the moment yet completely out of the ordinary.

My wife is visiting with her recently widowed mother, and my kids don't live here any longer, so I'm on my own. Me and the dog, that is. We'll get up and go to the Farmer's Market, where I'll grab some good cheese, gourmet dog treats, and whatever I feel like making for dinner. Got some yardwork to do. Need to clean out the garage, too.

In the late afternoon, I'll pay my respects at one of my soccer kids' graduation party. Known her since she was 12 and I coached her in club soccer. Passage of time and all that.

Between those comfortable first-world bookends, I'll be at a No Kings rally at the courthouse in town. I expect it to be civilized and incident-free - our burg is far from the epicenter of ICE enforcement, and we're the sort of affluent (and white) folk that the administration seems not interested in punching down on. I kinda think it'd be good for the overall movement if a group like mine gets roughed up a little bit, because it'd show conclusively that the neo-Gestapo will come after anyone and wake up the still-slumbering-into-autocracy masses. 

I don't go to show that I'm some sort of unusually patriotic or political fella. I just go because in the final reckoning, I want people to know which side I'm on, and that I'm willing to do more than blog about it. Even if it's just a little more.

Bringing the spirit of this guy with me, too. This is poetry. Not loud, not braggadocios, just real in a way a big segment of American men used to be. My Dad wasn't a Southern man by any stretch, but I believe he'd see his sense of decency and right and wrong echoed here.

🧵 1/4 This video was too long & needed to be broken into 4 sections Despite that, this Southern man’s message to his fellow southern men & “not the politicians & bootlickers pretending to know bourbon from Boone’s Farm, the good ol’ boys that can bait a hook & throw a punch” is worth the listen!

[image or embed]

— Guardrails of Democracy (@demguardrails.bsky.social) June 13, 2025 at 7:01 PM

It ain't great right now, our Republic. It may never be the same. But as long as enough of us stand up and say no, it's got a chance to be.

Fuck the Troops

I'm a long-time lefty who happens to also have a soft spot for the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. The Venn Diagram where I fit isn't the most capacious of properties, but there are enough of us. I've banged on for years about the right's cynical and disgusting embrace of The Troops^TM as a useful prop nearly always accompanied by lack of vital funding for mental health, family issues, and post-service support. And so I return once again to the soapbox for your entertainment and edification, and my own cathartic yawping.

Support the Troops? If you're waving the flag at this fucking debacle of a parade through the streets of Washington, DC, a $45m (and counting) monument to raging leadership ego funded by the units themselves, and you're not screaming that the Department of Veterans Affairs be properly funded, you know what you're actually saying?

Fuck the Troops

Support the Troops? If you applaud Pete Hegseth's bullshit performative Omaha Beach PT stunt but don't concern yourself with potential impacts to readiness, you know what you're actually saying?

Fuck the Troops

Support the Troops? If you're cheerleading for a fascistic occupation of on an American city by United States Fucking Marines but not demanding answers about the lack of planning, supplies, food, shelter, and water for the very same Marines, you know what you're actually saying?

Fuck the Troops

It's okay to say "fuck this guy". Preening fascist.

Support the Troops? If you're rattling sabers and jonesing for combat (other people's combat, not your own, you Potemkin tough guy) but you're not willing to stand up while the Defense Department culls women and minorities from its senior leadership ranks, you know what you're actually saying?

Fuck the Troops

Doesn't play as well as a political slogan, but sure feels like a more accurate depiction of the reality on the ground. People are going to die because of this administration and the GOP more broadly care more about wrapping themselves in the flag than they do tackling the hard work of managing a massively complex organization facing real and ongoing challenges related to climate change, asymmetric combat, emerging threats, readiness, and a litany of others. 

Fuck the Troops doesn't have a great beat, and you can't dance to it, though Lee Greenwood's workshopping some new material. But it sure feels like the message being sent from Washington.

Foreign Flags!!

Markwayne Mullin is a US Senator from Oklahoma.  According to Wikipedia:

• Mullin is the first Native American U.S. senator since Ben Nighthorse Campbell retired in 2005.
• His first name is a tribute to two of his paternal uncles, Mark and Wayne; his mother put both names on his birth certificate, intending to later shorten his name to one of the two, but ultimately never did.
• He is the only currently serving senator without at least a bachelor's degree.
• At the end of 2021, Mullin's reported assets increased to a range of $31.6 million to $75.6 million, compared to a range of $7.3 million to $29.9 million at the end of 2020. The increase was from the sale of his plumbing-related companies to HomeTown Services, a multi-state residential heating, air conditioning, plumbing and electrical company.

That's all pretty cool.  Good for him.  Sen. Mullin is also a major Trumpist and not afraid to go on TV to say ridiculous things.  Like this, in support of Trump sending the National Guard to confront the LA protestors:

"A foreign flag, while you're attacking law enforcement?!  It's pretty bad."

Pretty bad indeed!  Who would dare fly a foreign flag while attacking law enforcement?

Oh that's right, MAGA would, like they did on January 6.  We worked through this previously.  In addition to the Canadian flag shown above, the January 6 insurrectionists flew flags of Cuba, Georgia, India, Israel, South Korea, and South Vietnam.  And, of course, the Confederate States of America.

I assume anyone arrested at the LA protests will get pardoned.  Free the 6/9ers!

How You Dune

Orville and Wilbur you know, the Ohio brothers and their flying machine having put a skinny North Carolina barrier island on the map at the beginning of the 20th Century. Seventy years later, a feisty, committed woman and a band of environmental advocates fought to preserve a section of the landscape that’s become a national treasure and signature attraction of the Outer Banks. 

Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Nags Head, N.C., is home to the tallest “living” sand dune on the East Coast, providing ocean-to-sound views and more than 400 acres of hiking areas and natural habitats. Locals this past weekend celebrated the 50th anniversary of the park, which owes its existence largely to a woman named Carolista Baum. 

Baum was a jewelry maker from central North Carolina, and she and her family set up shop on the Outer Banks every summer, her children playing on and exploring the giant dunes and maritime forests daily. One August day in 1973, her kids saw a bulldozer they hadn’t seen previously at work at the north end of their “playground.” They ran to tell Mom, who closed up shop and hustled to the work site. She stood in front of the bulldozer and told the operator and construction crew that she wasn’t moving. After a conversation with the crew, the operator stood down and left for the day. She later went back and removed the distributor cap and other pieces that disabled the ‘dozer. 

Thus began an unrelenting effort to preserve the habitat. Developers had bulldozed and built on portions of the Outer Banks in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, hoping that the sandbar would attract more tourists and visitors. Baum and others wanted to protect the Jockey’s Ridge tract but didn’t have the money to buy it from the owners. After the confrontation with the bulldozer crew, she organized a group to preserve Jockey’s Ridge. A petition drive attracted 25,000 signatures in just seven days, according to a recent piece in the Smithsonian magazine. She solicited nickels and dimes from kids and sold honorary dune space for $5 per square foot, all of which went into a kitty to promote preservation. She routinely traveled to the state capital in Raleigh to lobby legislators, among them then-Lieutenant Gov. and later Gov. Jim Hunt, to set aside funds for the land. Her group produced a documentary that aired statewide and hired a plane to fly over a North Carolina-Duke football game dragging a banner that read “Save Jockey’s Ridge.” She talked to anyone who would listen, and some who wouldn’t, about the value of preserving the land. She and her supporters spread bumper stickers that read "SOS" -- for Save Our Sand Dunes -- all over the island, according to multiple accounts. 

Baum’s efforts led to the U.S. Dept. of the Interior designating Jockey’s Ridge and nearby Nags Head Woods as National Natural Landmarks in 1974. She and fellow advocates persuaded nearby landowners to sell parcels to the Jockey’s Ridge group or to the state. One year later, the state used funds and a matching Federal grant, along with donations from the Nature Conservancy, to buy the land containing the largest dunes, according to the Smithsonian piece. The original park site of 152 acres has since grown to 426 acres, with a recently refurbished visitor center, boardwalk and designated nature trails. 

[If not for Ms. Baum, there's no this:]

Today, Jockey’s Ridge and the big dune are among the most visited parks in the state. Legend has it that the name comes from locals racing Spanish mustangs through the flat area, and dune slopes providing natural seating for spectators. Baum passed away in 1991, but her legacy lives on through her children and hundreds of stewards of the property. From personal experience, I can tell you that a hike to the top and the 360-degree panoramic views are good for the soul. It might not have turned out that way, but for one woman and a group of supporters who decided that sometimes nature should hold sway. Someone just has to draw a line in the sand.

The Big Dumper

It's oft a dangerous game to anoint a new Gheorghie, especially if he's a baseball player, given that demographic's predilection for thinking America needs somehow to be made great again. But we're going to take a few tentative steps in the direction, for reasons that'll soon be obvious.

Cal Raleigh (just a terrific American athlete name) is a catcher for the Seattle Mariners. He grew up rooting for the Boston Red Sox and idolizing Jason Varitek (a plus!) in Cullowhee, North Carolina (hmmm - it's a college town, but it's in the middle of nowhere. could be a push.). Played his college ball at Florida State University (meh, but not disqualifying) and on Cape Cod for the Harwich Mariners (auspicious!).

After being drafted by Seattle in 2018, he made his major league debut in 2021. He's been with the big club ever since. This season, he leads the American League in homeruns with 23. He's second in the circuit in slugging and OPS, behind Aaron Judge's outrageous numbers.

All of this is interesting, even excellent. But we don't bring Cal Raleigh to your attention for his baseballing exploits, at least not entirely. No, we're here to celebrate something else about the M's backstop. You see, Cal Raleigh has a giant rear end. A prodigious posterior. A ridiculous rump.

If you Google "the big dumper", you're directed to Cal Raleigh's smiling mug, because that's the nickname teammate Jerred Kelenic bestowed upon him in 2020. Get a load of the bobblehead Seattle honored him with earlier this season:

Raleigh's Instagram is all baseball and family, and we're not gonna dig any deeper looking for trouble. We'll just celebrate the man and his giant ass, and hope he's not a fan of an entirely different giant ass. 

Husky Gameday, Part the Third

If you'd told me the Huskies would win the district tournament and be eliminated in the first round of the Region 4C playoffs before the season, I'd have signed for it with few regrets. I knew we were in a rebuilding year, and I definitely knew that our coach had a lot to learn. But now that we're actually facing the prospect of going home if we lose tonight at 6:00 pm, I would very much not sign for that outcome any longer. (Technically, we're going home regardless of what happens, but I think you get my point.)

Our opponent this evening brings a gaudy 16-0-2 record to the match (against our 8-6-4, though we're 5-1-1 in our last seven). They've scored 71 goals and allowed 5 (30 and 28 for the Huskies). They have five freshman starters, all of whom play for the same elite club team and have a lot of familiarity. They are fast, technical, and smart, and they're in good form - they won their district tournament final, 5-0.

We played them in the first game of our regular season. Gave up a goal off of a corner kick scramble in the first minute, then an own goal in the 53rd. Held our own, though we didn't exactly threaten them. We had kids playing different positions than we do now, and we know each other better. 

So you're tellin' me there's a chance! Up the Huskies!

zdaughter's Definitive Ranking of All Eight Mission: Impossible Movies

Everyone knows it's hard for me to pass on a request, so zdaughter and I sat down (at Whitney's request) to rank all eight Mission: Impossible movies.  It went like this.

zman: My friend Whitney asked us to do something.

zdaughter: Cool, what does she want?

zman: Whitney is a man.

zdaughter: Oh Whitney, right, he has a bad tattoo doesn't he?

zman: Several of my friends do but yes, he does.  He asked us to rank all eight Mission: Impossibles.

zdaughter: Yes!  I'll get a pencil and paper!

You may recall that she thinks of herself as a Mandalorian but she's also very much Hermione Granger--she's the kid who always raises her hand for every question just to keep the class moving along because she's paying exceedingly close attention and gets bored when things bog down.  She only got one question wrong on a math test so far this year and she's still pissed about it.  This is all her mother.  Outside of class she doesn't take herself too seriously.  She gets this from me.  Here's her spring school photo, for example.

I'm telling you all this to help frame up her approach to the M:I ranking.  She loves cold blooded killers, strong female characters, fast pacing, perfectionism, and a dollop of silliness.  And she's a zperson so she has no time for schmaltz, cheese, or maudlinism.

With that, here are her rankings:

8. Mission: Impossible 2 - Remarkably, an action movie directed by John Woo with Thandie Newton as the leading lady and Dougray Scott as the main villain is a dud.  zdaughter's take: "This is so cheesy.  He has long hair and he's always tossing it around.  The fight scenes are ridiculous, he's always flipping and spinning for no reason.  It's like he's trying to fight like a Jedi but he doesn't have a lightsaber."  I agree with all of this, I'm amazed that the franchise survived this cornball schlock.

7. Mission: Impossible 3 - Remarkably, an action movie directed by J.J. Abrams with Michelle Monaghan as the leading lady and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the main villain is a dud.  I sense a trend.  zdaughter's take: "This one's corny too.  His hair is short but now he's retired?  There's no way Ethan Hunt would retire.  And of course he has to come out of retirement to save his girlfriend.  I wasn't worried when he died, I knew they would bring him back to life.  Tom Cruise isn't going to die."  I agree with all of this too.  Blowing up a Lamborghini added insult to injury.

6. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - This is the eighth episode, currently in theaters near you.  zdaughter's take: "It's a good movie but it's too long and it's stressful.  It's a long time to be that stressed out.  Gabriel wasn't a great bad guy and it's hard to understand how the Entity works.  But there is lots of action and Grace is cool.  I wish they didn't kill [redacted]."  Grace is a thief, fyi, and zdaughter's favorite character in the franchise.  They could've lopped 45 minutes off this beast and told the exact same story.  At one point Cruise narrowly survives a crazy situation that drags on for half an hour and then he explains all the other stuff they need to do to accomplish the mission and I looked at my watch and exclaimed "Jesus Christ, we've been here for 90 minutes and they have more to do?!"  It's just too long.

5. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation - This is the fifth episode and the first one directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who directed all the subsequent episodes.  I'm surprised she has it this low but her top four are her top four and she isn't budging for anyone.  zdaughter's take: "It's a good movie but it isn't as good as the ones I like better.  I don't like the color filter."  I have to agree on the color issue.  I don't know if we had a streaming problem on Prime but the colors were way over-saturated and muddy.  But it introduces Ilsa Faust, a world-class assassin and zdaughter's second favorite character in the franchise.

4. Mission: Impossible - Fallout - This is the sixth episode and it's also surprisingly low but this is zdaughter's list and I'm not messing with it.  "This one is good.  It has Walker [Henry Cavill] and the White Widow [Vanessa Kirby] and Ethan Hunt is John Lark."  That all makes sense if you've seen the movie.  It's a banger--this would've been in my top two if I wrote the list.

3. Mission: Impossible - This is the one that started it all.  zdaughter's take: "This is the one where he drops down from the ceiling and he can't touch the floor and the rope slips and he stops an inch away from the floor.  And he jumps off a helicopter just as it explodes and it throws him onto a train."  In other words it has iconic scenes that everyone remembers.  It's the OG, the Sean Connery of the franchise.  Number three is where I would place it too.

2. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - This is the fourth episode, where the franchise turns away from the soft dreck of episodes 2 and 3 into hard espionage stories.  Sort of how the James Bond franchise did a complete tonal change when they moved from Pierce Brosnan's "Die Another Day" to Daniel Craig's "Casino Royale."  zdaughter's take: "Ethan Hunt climbs on the outside of a building like a budget Spider-Man, there's a crazy chase scene in a sandstorm, the Kremlin explodes, Hawkeye is in it too."  The Avengers crossover likely boosted this one in her eyes but I agree that it's a ton of fun.  It would've been in the top two on my list.

1. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning - This is the seventh episode and a bit of a surprise for the top spot.  But it makes sense when you hear zdaughter's take: "It has Agent Carter [Grace is played by Hayley Atwell, who played Agent Carter which I encourage you to watch on Disney+, zdaughter highly endorses it too] but it's weird to see her not in the 1940s.  It also has Ilsa and Paris [Paris is a female killing machine].  The best part is when Agent Carter tries to drive the Fiat but can only go in circles and Paris is just sitting there like what the hell.  It's the funniest of all of them."  This is all true, this is the episode that takes itself the least seriously, that occasionally puts tongue in cheek and humanizes the characters.  For example, there's a scene where Tom Cruise kills a bunch of people (this happens often) and Hayley Atwell (who met him a few hours ago) is comically shocked speechless and Cruise has to convince her that it's all ok.  In another scene, Atwell and Cruise are handcuffed together and hilarity ensues.  Cruise later ends up staggering around Rome, handcuffed to a steering wheel.  It's the only movie where Ethan Hunt gets goofed on and it has three badass female characters who help save the world, so that's why it's zdaughter's #1.