9ES354: The Jig Is Up

by jorn on January 18, 2026 at 9:48 pm

We know that we occasionally get a little into politics news on 9ES but we also recognize that can be a huge bummer. So instead we talk about Predator: Badlands. It’s not that we don’t care about what’s going on in the world, we just care a lot more about what happens when a Yautja and a Weyland-Yutani team up on a murder planet.

Honestly, Predator: Badlands might be the “weakest” of the three Predator projects helmed to date by Dan Trachtenberg. I use quotations there because while it’s not as good as Prey or Killer of Killers it’s probably the most fun a Predator movie has been since the original. Is it fan service to see a Yautja go toe-to-toe with absurd deadly monsters and synths for 100 minutes? Sure. But it’s fan service done right. The fact that it kind of ties in with Alien: Earth really seems like they’re building a pathway to an Alien vs Predator movie that isn’t complete shit and that’s way more exciting than global politics.

We even manage to talk about One Battle After Another without getting too bummed out.

But then Scott watched Tron: Ares and Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins and that pretty much bummed us all out.

We spend most of this episode of Garbage Time talking about Keith’s experience so far playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. You might not believe this but it’s actually pretty good. Somehow the most awarded video game in the history of The Game Awards really stands out as a good video game. But this is 9ES so Keith manages to nitpick it anyways. You know what was a perfect game though? Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. The game that we vaguely mention about being an RPG that you play on console via your phone is (I think) Sunderfolk.

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