The first two episodes of Common Side Effects air on Adult Swim at 11:30pm ET on Sunday, February 2 and stream on Max the following day.
A show like Common Side Effects has the potential to redefine the stories American television tells in animation. Neither full-on comedy nor ultraviolent action romp, the first four episodes of the surreal series take a propulsive, paranoid trek through the underbelly of big pharma. Often wordless and subtle in how it explores its themes and tells its lofty-yet-grounded storythis is a breath of fresh air within the Adult Swim lineup. Its success is the result of great minds coming together: Joe Bennett, co-creator of the meditative, psychedelic Scavengers Reign and Steve Hely, known for sitcoms like Veep and 30 Rock, mesh their sensibilities together to craft a show with a range of arrows in its quiver, but also the potential for its opposing tones to clash. Fortunately, they’re working under the guidance of Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, who know a thing or two about blending seemingly incompatible textures in animation after 13 seasons (and counting) of King of the Hill.
What’s immediately engaging about Common Side Effects is the way it connects to the overriding enmity many of us feel towards the healthcare industry at the moment. The show doesn’t hold back, painting pharmaceutical CEOs like Rick Kruger (voiced by Judge in his signature, nasal drawl) as bumbling idiots desensitized to their own existence and the average person as someone willing to throw their morals out the window for a bit of cash. Wrapping up this anti-capitalist sentiment in a conspiracy thriller stops the show from feeling like a lecture about the evils of for-profit medicine and instead makes it a blood-pumping exhibition of the cruelty we all know Rick and his real-world counterparts are capable of.
To pull this off, you need great characters – something Common Side Effects has in abundance. These aren’t just people we like to spend time with but people whose motivations and allegiances are split and have the capacity to make any decision at any moment, helping tension and anxiety flow through every episode. The show’s main character, Marshall (Dave King), finds himself in the crosshairs of every pharmaceutical company in the country when he happens upon a miraculous, death-curing mushroom.
Marshall’s character is tuned to perfection, with his mild manners and trusting personality being put to the test in a world where he can’t trust anyone. The only person he feels like he can be honest with is a friend from high school named Frances (Emily Pendergast), but she’s hiding the fact that she works for Rick at the fictional Reutical Pharmaceutical, Inc.. Complicating matters further: Frances’ mother is a casualty of the indifferent, uncaring American healthcare system, making her daughter a powerful character who doesn’t know whose side she’s on.
Through excellent animation and performances by King and Pendergast, Marshall and Frances are able to express tremendous chemistry and emotion. They’re similar people who connect through seeing the world in the same way, despite the massive secrets they keep from each other. Additionally, each of the first four episodes introduces someone new to the cast with their own motivations and baggage. Bennett, Hely, and crew fill in the outer reaches of these characters’ lives deftly.
Tension and stakes ratchet up at a steady and engaging pace, but much of it has a hard time sitting side by side with the show’s comedy. This mostly comes in the form of a pair of DEA agents (Joseph Lee Anderson and Martha Kelly) tasked with tracking Marshall’s activities. While their goofiness can be a welcome reprieve from a plot that moves into increasingly dark and surreal territory, a lot of the time it only serves to undercut and clash with everything else on screen. There’s a bit of insecurity emanating from Common Side Effects, as if the creators are trying to preempt criticism by peppering in some of the absurdist humor that defines other Adult Swim programming. It’s not entirely necessary: It’s worth setting any skepticism aside and going along with Common Side Effects because this is the type of show where the drama is impactful because it’s animated.
There are so many sequences in Common Side Effects that could never be achieved in live-action. When people and animals take Marshall’s miracle drug, we’re pulled into their minds. In moments that recall the psychedelic imagery and editing of Scavengers Reign, we see characters pulled back from the brink of death. It’s at once terrifying and awe-inspiring, a wordless harbinger of some lingering dread beyond human understanding.
The look of the show beyond these sequences is more inconsistent. There’s a satisfying chalkiness to the lines and skin tones of the characters, but they’re designed with off-putting proportions that make their heads slightly too big for their bodies. Much like some of the writing on Common Side Effects, it’s just a little too goofy for such serious subject matter.
