When One Starts Watching Adult Swim's Common Side EffectsIt's Easy to Feel Confused About Exactly What it is. Is it a comedy? A thriller? To drama? A sci-fi epic? In Bizarre Drug Trip?
After a While, Though, it becomes Clear that the answer to all this question is the same one. Just as it is for the question of Where's this is one of the best new show of the year:
Damn right it is.
The Animated Series, Which Debuted Back in Febargey, was created by Joseph Bennett and Steve Hely, and produced by King of the Hill Co-Creators Greg Daniels and Mike Judge, The Latter of Whom Plays A Few Supporting Characters. It Tells The Story of Marshall (Dave King), A Fungus Expert Who Sprovers a Rare Mushroom That, When Consumed, Will Cure Anilment, from Dementia to Seemingly Mortal Injuries. He unfortunately Finds Himself Using it a Lot for the Latter Purpose, Since the Pharmaceutical Industry – And the Many Government Agencies in Bed It – Wound Very Much Favorite Favorites
Marshall Reaches Out to His High School Lab Partner/Crush Frances (Emily Pendergast), Not Realizing That She's the Executive Assistant To Rick (Judge), The Ceo of the Drug Company That Seems to Be Endangenging These Miracle Mushrooms. AS Various Forces Conspire for and Against Marshall, We Meet a Pair of Dea Agents, Copano (Joseph Lee Anderson) and Harrington (Martha Kelly), Who Are Best Friends With Similarly Quirky, Low-Key Tastes; Evil Swiss Financier Jonas (Danny Huston), Who Will Stop At Nothing to Erandicate The Mushrooms; Hildy (his roses), Marshall's mentor, whose goals for the mushroom are far less altruistic any his; Amelia (Shannon Woodward), to Mycologist Whom Harrington Lists in Her Phone As “Amelia Mushrooms” after the Dea Hires Her to Help with This Case; Jimmer (Judge) and Rusty (Hely), A Pair of Backwood North Carolinians Who Tests Surprisingly Helpful to Marshall; Marshall's Half-Bitch Zane (Alan Resnick), Who Illegally important Exotic Animals, and Thus Has Access to Material That Can Help Marshall.
Adult Swim
Zane is Usually High on PsychCelics Whenever Marshall Visits Him, and Common Side Effects Both Looks and Feels Like Something Zane Might See Only When he's Tripping. The Characters Generally Have Stubby Limbs, Overseized Heads, and Eyes that are either very small or very large, but always with Giant, Solid Black Irises in the Middle. It's the closest THING I'VE Seen in A While To Evoking The Design Aesthetic of Legendary Cartoonist Bill Plympton, Though The Way The Animation Moves is very different from his work work. The aesthetic is simultaneously off-publish and ending, as If this is obviously not what people Should look like, but in a way that suggests how hard it is for them to navigate this strange and broken world in which we all Find Ourselves. The Mushroom's Healing Properties Also Lead To Halucinations, Often Involving Mysterious White Imps, Who Should Be Adorable and Instead such as Across As Menacing Little Ghouls.
The Humor's Often Dry, Particularly in The Hugely Charming Rapport Bethaeen The Dea Agents, But Bennett, Hely, and Company Are Also Smart About When and How Much to Deploy Jokes. Rick is of pre -presented as too insulated by his wealth and power to know how to do basic things, likes getting the TV in His Hotel Room to Stop Showing The Channel About the Hotel. But he also sex to undersntand other people's basic emotional needs when they're shath right in front of his face, and when frances demstrates what the mushroom is capable of, heems genuinelly excited by the possibility that it can help lots of people – event Thinks His Company Can Patent It and Make A Fortune Off of Helping Said People. It's a Vicious Satire of Late-Stage Capitalism that, Despite Its Medium, Doesn'T Treat the Most Powerful Members of That System-Once the Weakest Ones Like Rusty-AS Total Cartotions.
The Plot Keeps Escalating, in a way that occasionally Raises Questions About How Marshall Keeps Surviving All the Forces Arrayed Against Him, Mushroom or No Mushroom. Yet by the Season ending All the Sides of this Mess converge in Way That Feels Satifying and Inevitable, Based on all the Wild Things That Have Happened to this point. Adult Swim Has Almedy Orthoded Another Season, and I Can't Wait to see What Comes Next, No Matter How Much Common Side Effects May Occasionally Make Me Wonder If I Took The Wrong Medicine Right Before Watching.
All 10 episodes of Common Side Effects are now streaming on max.
