‘Common Side Effects’ — A Psychedelic Delicacy

This world could use some healing

There’s a quality in serial television I’m obsessed with: an obscure mystery brimming with potential. That feeling of not getting immediate answers, having to do brainwork to find revelations, and riding a wave of your own imagination about what a story and its characters can possibly hold. It's something that rarely happens on TV (or in cinema) lately, but when it does, it reignites my passion and flares up my enthusiasm like nothing else.

In 2023, MAX’s adult animation Scavengers Reign not only built its entire concept on that quality but practically redefined it through a dense and dangerous world that challenged viewers to observe and make sense of a foreign and unknown planet. Few show cancellations hurt as much in recent years as that one. Less than two years later, the remedy comes from one of that show’s co-creators, Joseph Bennett, joined by veteran TV writer Steve Hely, with Common Side Effects, currently airing on Adult Swim.

Though CSE is a far cry from the immersive flora and fauna of Vesta (the alien planet in Scavengers Reign), it’s a similarly fresh and mind-bending narrative that revels in psychotomimetic abstracts while also being rooted in the realistic and capitalist world of pharmaceuticals. It’s more light-hearted and high concept than SR — a likely conscious effort to appeal to a broader audience — yet its seed to blossom into a heady and thought-provoking trip is planted early on.

What would you do if you discovered a herb that could cure all ailments in the world? Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, cancer, and perhaps even death. Would you share it or keep it a well-guarded secret? Marshall Cuso (Dave King), a peculiar genius and expert botanist, discovers that probable panacea in the Peruvian Highlands in the form of a mushroom named Blue Angel, and he’s much aware of its world-changing power. If exposed, this tiny blue plant can destroy and make the entire big pharma industry obsolete, taking billions of future dollars away from its ruling power magnates.

Unluckily for Marshall, he runs into his high-school crush, Frances (Emily Pendergast), after getting kicked out of an event held by Reutical Pharmaceutical (the Big Pharma in this universe), and tells her about his discovery, paired with a demonstration of killing a pigeon then bring it back to life. What he doesn’t know is that Frances works for that same company as an executive assistant, and she gradually feeds them information about the plant, hoping for a promotion she’s been gunning for a while. Without knowing, she activates a tsunami of forces — including Reutical’s ruthless board member Jonas Backstein (Danny Huston), the DEA, the federal government, and others — that set out to ruin Marshall and his revelation by any means necessary.

Though his main goal is to study and learn how to reproduce the mushroom in a controlled environment to provide free healthcare for everybody, he has no doubts about how this makes him an immediate target. His mounting paranoia actually saves him from several attacks that could’ve cost his life. He spends the majority of the series on the run — escaping scenarios that could trap or kill him — while relentlessly examining the effects of the Blue Angel and trying to find a way to propagate it through trial and error.

Though the show largely focuses on these thrilling and suspense-ridden sequences — involving more and more bloody action toward the end of the season — it also gives us mind-boggling visions through trippy and surreal scenes about the mushroom’s short and long-term effects. This is where CSE truly excels: the hallucinations of those who’ve taken the plant increasingly get weirder and more disturbing, featuring small, baby-like creatures (who strike us as both creepy and benevolent) combined with an odd yet soothing ambient soundtrack. These segments convey the potentially dangerous mental repercussions of the mushroom while also hinting at its miraculous healing potency.

And thanks to the series’ uncanny animation (which draws from various familiar styles yet creates its uniquely own) these weirdly shaped beings bring something astonishingly innovative and fascinating to the show. It's a concoction of sorts that no other TV program offers right now, carving out a space for an audience that’s into out of the ordinary storytelling.

On the one hand, I wish there were more of these, but at the same time, I think the creators wisely chose to reserve much of the mystery that could be explored in painstaking detail in consequent seasons. Season 1 (provided in its entirety for review) is mostly about establishing the characters and creating an alluring milieu we want to return to for several years. There are shortcomings that come down to a few overly predictable plotlines, rushed narrative developments, and Marshall's weakness for sharing pivotal information with the wrong people, but overall, CSE is such a distinctively quirky show that it’s easy to pardon its flaws.

Personally, I applaud every attempt of a storytelling approach that dares to disrupt and change overused formulas, go against the tide, and deliver something that stimulates our brain by erasing the usual lines. It's too early to tell whether Common Side Effects can fulfill its vast and bold potential in the long run (if Adult Swim is willing), but this debut lays out all the promising signs to expect a lot from this low-key yet tremendously ambitious series.

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