‘Common Side Effects’ Review: Adult Swim’s Animated Conspiracy Thriller About Big Pharma Is a Whole Vibe

“What if there were a medicine that could heal almost anything? What if they didn’t want you to know about it?” So goes every health grift, preached by everyone from snake oil salesmen to chumbox clickbait to, probably, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the not-too-distant future.

But no, really: What if?

This is the premise of Adult Swim’s Common Side Effects. And if the ingredient at its center sits squarely and obviously within the realm of science fiction, the all too plausible consequences that ripple out from its discovery are what make the animated thriller feel furiously relevant, dryly hilarious and strangely haunting.

The panacea in question is the “blue angel,” a rare Peruvian mushroom with the nigh-supernatural ability to cure anything from dementia to gunshot wounds to, possibly, death itself. It’s the groundbreaking find of Marshall Cuso (Dave King), a genius with the bare chest, bushy beard and practical sandals of someone’s eccentric hippie uncle. The enormity of this breakthrough is not lost on Marshall. Neither is the danger that accompanies it. Even as he confides his secret to his high school lab partner Frances (Emily Pendergast) — who, unbeknownst to him, happens to be the assistant to Reutical Pharmaceuticals CEO Rick Kruger (executive producer Mike Judge) — his eyes dart about the room scanning for spies.

As the saying goes, though, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you. In Marshall’s case, “they” very much are. In classic conspiracy theory fashion, the plot goes all the way to the top, starting with Reutical’s cold-blooded owner Jonas “the Wolf” Backstein (Danny Huston), winding through the politicians he has in his pocket and the government agencies they command, and stretching down to assorted independent operators who see the chance to grab some of this wealth and influence for themselves.

That Marshall simply wants to share this cure-all with the world, with no apparent interest in profiting from it, only makes him more dangerous to powers who are very much interested in profit. He spends much of the four half-hour episodes sent to critics (of a 10-episode season) running from gunfire, crashing on planes, speeding down highways away from grizzled mercenaries. This element of the plot derives much of its potency from its zeitgeist-y timing. At a time when our collective faith in our political and healthcare systems has been well and thoroughly shaken, the possibility that Big Pharma might resort to outright murder to protect their revenues seems less fanciful than the idea that they’d just let him go about his business.

But it’s the precision with which this narrative is executed that allows it to get under the skin, and stay there. Common Side Effects counts among its makers some of the finest purveyors of workplace comedy — including executive producers Judge (Silicon Valley, Office Space) and Greg Daniels (The Office) and co-creator Steve Hely (The Office, Veep, 30 Rock) — and it shows in the series’ knack for finding the comic banality behind all of Marshall’s exotic action-packed escapades.

Rick is less an evil genius than, as Marshall puts it, “the devil’s idiot butler,” a self-important nose picker whose method of executing Jonas’ sinister corporate directives is to play games on his phone while barking orders at Frances. The DEA is represented by agents Copano (Joseph Lee Anderson) and Harrington (an exquisitely deadpan Martha Kelly), who spend stakeouts dancing to oldies in the car and office time posing each other questions like “Is celery carrot’s cousin, or a sibling?” (“You don’t have to answer right away,” Harrington adds.) Their “a job’s a job” approach to their work is relatable and funny. It’s also purposefully frustrating and a bit chilling. Marshall’s efforts to save humanity could be thwarted by two people who can’t be bothered to ask what they’re really doing and why.

But if a justified cynicism courses through the story, it’s counterbalanced by an earnest and disarming sense of awe. Common Side Effects’ other co-creator is Joe Bennett of Max’s gorgeous and eerie Scavengers Reign, and his new show shares with its predecessor a wide-eyed curiosity about the natural world in all its balance, resilience and capacity for change. Though the writing is too thoughtful to fall back on messaging as simplistic as “Mother Earth good, mankind bad,” it does ask us to reflect on the havoc we’re wreaking on the planet — to mourn our careless destructiveness, to observe how ecosystems respond, to consider our place in these cycles of damage and adaptation.

Compared to the frenetic wackiness of Adult Swim hits like Rick and Morty or The Venture Bros., Common Side Effects can feel delicate, even a bit slow. But its minor-key vibe is its own draw. Its art is distinctive but unpretty when it comes to the human characters, whose facial features tend to be crowded in the middle of their large balloon-shaped heads. But it can be lovely in its nature sequences, and downright striking in its drug-trip ones. Mushroom users zoom back to the moment of their births, or out into the vast expanses of space. They’re racked by impossible visions; a frequent side effect is a hallucination of a tiny, white, vaguely humanoid figure. Given Bennett’s earlier work, I wouldn’t be surprised if the second half of the season tipped more explicitly in the direction of body horror.

Wherever it goes, the result, for now, is a series that feels not quite like anything else on television. It’s unpredictable and genuinely exciting. It’s funny in a dark way but also occasionally in a laugh-out-loud way (thanks, often, to the A+ comic timing of Marshall’s pet tortoise Socrates). It’s almost terrifyingly timely, tapping into the feelings of fear, exhaustion and boiling rage pulsing through so much of our discourse about drug companies, health insurance and capitalism.

And it is, in its way, tremulously hopeful. Frances watches Marshall, in an old YouTube video, point out that what look like individual growths of chicken of the woods mushrooms are actually connected. “If a fungus needs help, the network knows, and transfers sugars, water and minerals to a friend in need,” he says. “You think you’re looking at a different fungus but what you’re seeing is a single intelligence.” In the context of the show, Marshall might be that mushroom helping his friends. He might recruit other friends along the way. He may or may not succeed. But there’s something worthwhile and affirming about just watching him try.