REVIEW: ‘Common Side Effects’ Pushes Adult Animation To The Max

Scavengers Reign was, as the kids say, a cultural reset for genre expectations in the adult animation medium. Now, Joe Bennett is pushing the boundary again with Common Side Effects (2025). Airing on Adult Swim, the series follows what happens when a mysterious (and adorable) blue mushroom is discovered. Unlike the micro-dosing trend or the ones that give you a trippy story to tell a friend, this one cures. It cures everything.

The half-hour series follows Marshall Cuso (Dave King) and Frances Applewhite (Emily Pendergast), two former high school lab partners who share a secret: Marshall has discovered the world’s greatest medicine, a mushroom that can heal almost anything. And that even means mortal wounds. As everyone dismisses Marshall, he takes his little mushroom on the road to get assistance and change the world.

That said, big pharma can’t make money if we all get healed. So, in trying to save the world and show humanity some compassion, Marshall finds himself at the center of the worst hidden conspiracy: keep people sick. Hunted by the DEA, big pharma, and international businessmen, Marshall and Frances are on the run with the ability to solve death.

Filled with anti-capitalist satire and an incisive spotlight on the healthcare industry, Common Side Effects is a series that doesn’t rely on violence or sex to sell itself to an adult audience. It depends on how dejected we all are about surviving in this broken healthcare system. Truly, nothing like this has made it onto Adult Swim before, and we need more like it.

Adult Swim’s animation line-up has never seen something like Common Side Effects.

Common Side Effects highlights the depth and breadth of animation’s narrative exploration as a medium. It’s hilarious, gross at times, and always a trip. The series understands how to use animation to push a science fiction story further than live-action ever could. With unique character designs and even more unique circumstances, Common Side Effects captures the whimsy and dystopian reality of healthcare all in one go.

With the Scavengers Reign showrunner Joe Bennett and Veep’s Steve Hely at the helm of Common Side Effects, it should be no surprise that the series captures the comedy inside of the deep, dark, capitalistic pharmaceutical system. Because yes, something that’s supposed to make us better but gets higher margins by making us sicker is inherently the kind of black comedy that should be skewered whenever given a chance.

In addition to Bennett and Hely, the series has Executive Producers Mike Judge and Greg Daniels of King of The Hill animation fame, and it shows. The effort to develop a profoundly recognizable and empathetic story through a hyperbolic magic blue mushroom can’t be understated. Common Side Effects captures the wonder of discovery, the adventure behind capturing something world-changing, and the abject horror of realizing that our sickness and death work to put money in the company’s pockets.

Common Side Effects is a bold story that uses hypnotic animation, surreal twists in reality, and, ultimately, a deep understanding of riding the line between humor and depression to push what viewers come to expect from the medium. Adult Swim has long led experimental adult animation, but Common Side Effects stands above them all. Due in no small part to Marshall.

Marshall grounds this Adult Swim animation with kindness surrounded by surrealist artistry.

Marshall offers the viewers kindness and compassion in the series. We latch on to him, root for him, and watch enamored as the ground shifts beneath him. As more people learn about the little mushroom, Marshall’s ability to keep hold of a shred of kindness makes him stand out as the setting and complexity of the situation darkens. Common Side Effects allows Mark to be himself, even when he is literally hunted by so-called friends, the DEA, and money-hungry company men.

Every part of the series works when it comes to characters. CEO Rick Kruger (Mike Judge) highlights the ineptitude and complete disregard for the people on the other side of the illnesses. The DEA agents, Agent Harrington (Martha Kelly) and Agent Copano (Joseph Lee Anderson), hot on Marshall and Frances’ trail are more of a bumbling destruction when meant to be small reprieve from the crushing emotional weight that the series’ narrative carries. But it’s Frances where the show’s complexity takes center stage.

Marshall’s former lab partner isn’t so dissimilar from him. But while he is mild-mannered and looking to do good, Frances has more than one skeleton in her closet. Moved to act because of her grief, her employer throws a different wrench into the duo’s plan as they try to evade being cornered. Does she help her boss? Or does she help people? It’s a central conflict that forces the audience to engage on its own terms.

Common Side Effects needs to be experienced to be believed. In a post-Luigi world, where we’re sicker than ever, debilitated by medical debt, and currently facing a rollback of things that kept us safe, well, a magic mushroom that could cure our lives would be a dream.

Common Side Effects can be unsettling, gross, rejuvenating, and bold. It’s also Adult Swim’s best. A swing for the fences, this series is a win for adult animation as a medium.

Common Side Effects (2025) is streaming now on MAX (formerly HBO Max), with new episodes every Monday on Adult Swim.