You don’t often see animated thrillers, much less animated comedic thrillers. So the new Adult Swim series Common Side Effects seems to have that genre more or less to itself. There are some big names associated with this series that puts a bright spotlight on Big Pharma and our healthcare system in the U.S., and it shows in not only the quality of the story but the quirkiness of many of its characters.
COMMON SIDE EFFECTS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A pharmaceutical executive tells an audience full of investors that they found that for a particular drug they produce, “diarrhea is the most preferred side effect to, you know, the depression and suicide thoughts.”
The Gist: During the meeting of Reutical Pharmaceuticals’ investors, a bearded man in an open shirt comes up to the mic, holding a dying plant to ask Rick Kruger (Mike Judge), the company’s CEO, about the destruction of an ecosystem near one of their plants in Peru.
The man is Marshall Cuso (Dave King), and while Rick is trying to get security to escort Marshall out, Frances Applewhite (Emily Pendergast), Rick’s assistant, recognizes him. Marshall and Frances went to high school together and used to be lab partners in science classes. She goes to talk to him and takes off her Reutical pin to hide who she works for.
He tells her that, while studying mushrooms in Peru, he came across an hallucinogenic fungus that, when ingested, can cure just about any illness or injury. He demonstrates by snapping a pigeon’s neck, then feeding it a mushroom; it wakes and flies away.
If he can synthesize what this mushroom is able to do, it would put big Pharma more or less out of business, which is why, as we flash back to his research in Peru, we see that right after he found the iridescent blue mushroom and saw what it could do, he was chased by military helicopter. After the plane he was using to escape was shot down, he took a mushroom; it gave him odd visions of tiny baby-like creatures wandering in a dreamscape. But it did the trick; he woke up and escaped back to the U.S.
The U.S. government knows what Marshall is up to, and the DEA sends their “best” team on it: Copano (Joseph Lee Anderson) and Harrington (Martha Kelly), who are more co-dependent than most law enforcement partners are. When we first see them, Copano plays “Jump In The Line” into Harrington’s earpiece, and we see them both bopping along to it in their car.
In the meantime, Rick tells Frances that Reutical is in big trouble after some failed product launches and a big lawsuit, so she hints that she might have a new drug for them to work on.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? In a weird way, Common Side Effects feels like Office Space crossed with a comedic thriller series like Based On A True Story and stories about our broken healthcare industry, like Dopesick and Painkiller.
Our Take: Common Side Effects, created by Joseph Bennett and Steve Hely, boasts Judge and Greg Daniels among its executive producers, and the influence of the duo that brought us King Of The Hill is apparent in the series. Almost everyone involved in this story, from Marshall and who he associates with, to almost everyone who is after him, has oddities and quirks. Some of them are distracting, but others, like Copano and Harrington’s music-fueled partnership, make them interesting enough that the story becomes less a good guy-bad guys story than on first glance.
It definitely is a story that lends itself to animation, because of the fantasy-like existence of the blue mushroom and the hallucinogenic effects work better in a hand-drawn fashion than with even the best CGI. But it also helps make the characters look less generic; the evil government-adjacent people after Marshall have tiny, pinched faces, while others are more expressive. People forget how much animation, especially of the hand-drawn variety, can accomplish a lot of visual communication in a movie or series, and Common Side Effects is a reminder of that.
We haven’t mentioned Pendergrast as Frances yet, because she’s the only character without any quirks. That’s needed in a show like this, though, because someone needs to be the stable, emotional center, and her character has some very real issues to deal with, from a mother with dementia to a boyfriend who seems to have the emotional maturity of a 12-year-old. Her motivations are a bit mixed, but she really does bring much more of an emotional grounding as the series goes on and the danger around Marshall becomes more violent.
Sex and Skin: None. The show is violent, though, and it’s definitely not for kids.
Parting Shot: After being chased out of his home in the woods, Marshall takes his tortoise to the city, and calls Frances from an alleyway, telling her he needs someplace to stay.
Sleeper Star: While Mike Judge makes Rick Kruger sound a lot like Hank HIll, but he is the right voice for the disinterested CEO, who seems to be more concerned about the games on his phone than actually leading the company.
Most Pilot-y Line: None we could find.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Common Side Effects is definitely more thriller than comedy, but there are enough funny moments to lighten the mood as things get more complex and serious by the third and fourth episodes. Once we get to that point, though, it’s a surprisingly gripping thriller that keeps viewers engaged.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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