Common Side Effects Is as Trippy as It Is Brillian...

Animation is justifiably praised as one of our most significant art forms. Talented writers infuse life into worlds of their own creation, reflecting our own, while artists capture the beauty and imperfections of our lives. If there were ever a time to commend a show for balancing comedy, anxiety, and artistry, it would be Adult Swim’s surreal animated series about a magic mushroom disrupting Big Pharma.

Common Side Effects, by co-creators Joe Bennett (Scavengers Reign) and Steve Hely (Veep, The Office, 30 Rock), asks a fleeting, shower-thought sort of question with sincerity: what if the world discovered a drug that could cure anything? Similar to a modern-day Prometheus, an animal-loving hippie named Marshall (Dave King) discovers blue mushrooms that have the ability to heal all physical injuries and ailments, including bullet wounds and dementia. For obvious reasons, pharmaceutical companies don’t want his discovery to go public, so they falsify records and frame him as a wanted criminal.

This leads him to confide in his former high school lab mate, Frances (Emily Pendergast). Unbeknownst to him, Frances works as the assistant to the head of Reutical Pharmaceuticals, whose inept CEO Rick (Mike Judge)’s job is riding on a new commercial drug. What follows is an intense and suspenseful cat-and-mouse manhunt where Marshall and Frances duck DEA agents, hitmen, and desperate everyday people for their life-changing drug whose mysterious side effects might not be worth the trouble in the long run.

What makes Common Side Effects a unique animated series is the earnestness of its themes, despite being such a weird-looking show. At one moment, it’s a dark espionage drama filled with political betrayals, undercover agents, and gruesome deaths. In the next, it’s a lively comedy where DEA agents groove to Harry Belafonte’s “Jump in the Line” and little alien dudes cartwheel with their booties out, all while its entire exhausted cast looks like walking bobbleheads. The show’s eerie-meets-zany tones should clash, but Common Side Effects finds harmony by balancing its spinning plates without losing focus on that burning question about what a miracle drug would do to the world.

At its core, Common Side Effects is a show that transcends conventional critiques of the United States healthcare system. Instead of relying on a simplistic premise where the heroes triumph over the evil corporation and spread the wealth, the show delves into a more nuanced and compelling narrative about how hope turns to despair. With each episode, Common Side Effects explores how the gravity of deciding what to do with a universal cure-all drug capable of eliminating copays, premiums, and debt-laden obstacles would wear down anyone trying to capitalize on it. Both the show’s protagonists and its scheming antagonists find themselves overwhelmed as they grapple with the immense responsibility that comes with holding the fate of the world in their hands.

Like Scavengers Reign, Common Side Effects is abound with lush and vivid background art; surreal, kaleidoscopic, fluid animation; and shocking violence—all working in concert with its suspenseful narrative. All of the above coalesces in a gut-wrenching finale that, thankfully, escapes its predecessor’s fate, leaving the possibilities of what lies in store for season two to cut even deeper into its gripping tale.

You can stream all 10 episodes of Common Side Effects on Max.

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