Common Side Effects

Common Side Effects
Genre	Adult animation Dramedy Conspiracy thriller
Created by	Joseph Bennett Steve Hely[1]
Voices of	Dave King Emily Pendergast Mike Judge Martha Kelly Joseph Lee Anderson
Composer	Nicolas Snyder
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	10
Production
Executive producers	Joseph Bennett Steve Hely Mike Judge Greg Daniels Dustin Davis James Merrill Sean Buckelew Benjy Brooke Kelly Crews[a] Suzanna Makkos[a]
Producers	Max Minor Susan Shi Paige Boudreaux[b] Jonathan Roig[b] Jacey Bradley[b]
Editor	Tony Christopherson
Running time	23 minutes
Production companies	Green Street Pictures Bandera Entertainment Tell Me More Williams Street
Original release
Network	Adult Swim
Release	February 2, 2025 (2025-02-02) – present

Common Side Effects is an American adult animated television series created by Joseph Bennett and Steve Hely for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block with availability on Max.

The pilot episode premiered privately at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2024, and publicly a month later at Adult Swim's San Diego Comic-Con panel in July 2024.^[2][3][4] The series premiered on Adult Swim on February 2, 2025,^[4] to critical acclaim. The series has an encore broadcast on the network's Toonami programming block that began on March 2, 2025.^[5] On March 28, 2025, it was announced the series was renewed for a second season.^[6]

Premise

Two high school friends, Marshall and Frances, reconnect after Marshall discovers the Blue Angel Mushroom, a mushroom with healing effects that appears to cure all illnesses. In the process, they also uncover a conspiracy involving Reutical Pharmaceuticals, Inc., one of the largest pharmaceutical companies, and the government, to suppress all knowledge of said mushroom.^[7]

Characters

Main

• Marshall Cuso (voiced by Dave King) is the knowledgeable, cautious protagonist of the series and was friends with Frances in high school. He is an accomplished expert in fungi who has done charity work in foreign countries and is sly in run-ins with the DEA.
• Frances Applewhite (voiced by Emily Pendergast) is Rick's executive assistant and Marshall's high school lab mate and friend. Though initially hesitant about the effects of the Blue Angel, she eventually sees the monetary value in the mushrooms and is motivated to try and get them to Rick to take care of her mother, who was recently diagnosed with dementia.
• Agents Copano (voiced by Joseph Lee Anderson) and Harrington (voiced by Martha Kelly) are nonchalant best friends who work for the Drug Enforcement Administration. Kelly describes Harrington as "goofy but is very pragmatic about [her] job.", while Anderson describes Copano as someone who is "big on conspiracy theories" and who likes to "connect dots when they probably should not be connected."^[8]
• Rick Kruger (voiced by Mike Judge) is the incompetent chief executive officer of Reutical, who constantly bothers Frances to do mundane tasks for him, such as booking reservations and changing the TV channel. He also enjoys farming simulator video games, often playing in improper settings such as work and formal events.

Recurring

• Nick (voiced by Ben Feldman) is Frances' lackadaisical, often oblivious boyfriend who loves VR gaming. Feldman also provides additional voices.
• Jonas Backstein (voiced by Danny Huston) is a powerful Swiss financier and board member of Reutical with heavy insider ties to the federal government who is focused on destroying Marshall and the mushrooms.
• Cecily (voiced by Sydney Poitier) is a Deputy National Security Director with influence over the DEA who secretly conspires with Jonas and Reutical.
• Hildy (voiced by Sue Rose) is Marshall's idiosyncratic, mycologist mentor who seeks to possess the Blue Angel for her own ends.
• Sonia Applewhite (voiced by Lin Shaye) is Frances' mother who has been diagnosed with dementia, and is Frances' main motivation for acquiring the Blue Angel mushroom.
• Amelia (voiced by Shannon Woodward) is the laid-back mycologist hired by the DEA to gather information on the Blue Angel, also acting as a single mother and caretaker to her ill son, Wyatt. Woodward also provides additional voices.
• Kiki (voiced by Christine Ko) is a researcher at Reutical. Young and knowledgeable on medicine and the pharmaceutical system, she acts as the devil's advocate for the company, disputing the arguments brought up by people such as Marshall.
• Zane (voiced by Alan Resnick) is Marshall's veterinarian half-brother specializing in marine animals. He enjoys taking psychedelic drugs and illegally imports rare tropical animals.
• Kenji is Copano and Harrington's boss at the DEA.^[9]
• Jimmer Jarvis (voiced by Mike Judge) is the Sheriff of Averesboro, North Carolina who becomes Marshall's next-door neighbor and ally.
• Rusty (voiced by Steve Hely) is Jimmer’s redneck nephew who spends most of his time shooting guns or riding his BMX bike.

Additional / Guest voices

• Shalita Grant as Female DEA Agent / Susan / Kelly
• Bob Stephenson as Connor / Samurai
• Timothy Simons as DEA Dispatcher / Lawyer / Test Subject 3
• Andy Daly as Mysterious Passenger / Christopher
• Nicolas Cantu as Tommy

Episodes

No.	Title [10]	Directed by	Written by	Original release date [10]	US viewers (millions)
1	"Pilot"	Camille Bozec	Joe Bennett & Steve Hely	February 2, 2025 (2025-02-02)	0.18[11]
After angrily confronting CEO Rick Kruger at a Reutical Pharmaceutical event, Marshall Cuso reunites with high school friend Frances Applewhite. Unaware that she is Rick's assistant, Marshall tells her about a new mushroom he discovered that acts as a panacea, which he demonstrates by killing and resurrecting a pigeon. A DEA agent has Marshall under surveillance, and dimwitted nonchalant agents Copano and Harrington are assigned to investigate him. At a coffee shop, Marshall tells Frances how he found the Blue Angel mushroom that only grows in a remote valley in the Peruvian Highlands. He also states that Reutical has a plant upstream from the valley that risks polluting the area. While Frances takes a call, Marshall becomes paranoid and flees. After talking with Rick about new medicines, Frances decides to get the Blue Angel over to Rick for more money. Marshall returns home and notices a security system alarm. The DEA conducts a raid on his house, but Marshall has already escaped with his new pet tortoise Socrates. On the run, Marshall calls Frances in an alleyway.
2	"Lakeshore Limited"	Sean Buckelew	Steve Hely	February 2, 2025 (2025-02-02)	0.18[11]
Connor, a Reutical employee from the Peru facility, meets with Cecily, a federal government official, and Jonas "the Wolf" Backstein, a Reutical board member. Connor recounts witnessing Marshall use the mushroom to save an injured child and demonstrates its healing powers. Cecily escalates the DEA's pursuit of Marshall, while Jonas sends mercenaries to kill him. Marshall, still on the run, tries meeting with Frances and briefly sees his half-brother Zane to get medicine for Socrates. Copano and Harrington begin to question why they are sent to stake out Marshall's home. Frances continues researching the Blue Angel to bring to Reutical and investigates Marshall's house. Marshall arranges to have the notebooks in his house destroyed and his pets moved. However, the men sent to handle this accidentally burn down his house with Frances narrowly escaping. Mercenaries ambush Marshall by broadsiding his car, but he heals himself with a mushroom and escapes. Copano and Harrington pick up Amelia, a mycologist hired to examine Marshall's possessions, but arrive to find the house destroyed. Jonas has Connor shot in the head to ensure total destruction of the mushroom.
3	"Hildy"	Vincent Tsui	Emma Barrie	February 9, 2025 (2025-02-09)	0.14[11]
Marshall flees undercover agents who plant a bug on him. Frances visits her mother Sonia in a care facility and finds a Blue Angel that Marshall left for her. Frances feeds it to Sonia hoping to cure her dementia, but is disappointed when there is no apparent effect. Marshall encounters the site of a car accident and gives a mushroom to John, the critically injured driver. Marshall visits his old mycology mentor Hildy, informing her of his discovery of the Blue Angel. Skeptical, she questions him and theorizes that its properties come from adaptation to Reutical's environmental pollution. When Marshall is reluctant to show her the mushroom, Hildy shoots herself in the chest to force him to give her a mushroom, whereupon she sees a vision of her head exploding repeatedly and a blue orb emerging. Afterwards, Marshall asks for Hildy's help but flees after she tries to shoot him to take the mushrooms for herself. Amelia finds a Blue Angel among evidence from Marshall's house. John, the crash victim, is healing and sees mushroom-induced visions of tiny, naked, white figures. Sonia sees hallucinations of the same small figures and greets them, regaining her ability to speak.
4	"Dumpsite"	Camille Bozec	Jean Kyoung Frazier	February 16, 2025 (2025-02-16)	N/A
Frances and Nick, her lackadaisical boyfriend, have sex on the work trip, where Frances falsely says she wants to marry him, causing them to have an argument. She then gets a call from her mom's receptionist, who tells her that her mom has seemingly lost her dementia. She then leaves Rick and Nick to see her mom, where she finds that the mushroom has healed her. She then leaves to locate Marshall and help him grow them. Meanwhile, Marshall decides to purchase a plot of land near a chemical waste site with the intention of growing more of his mushrooms there, believing the contaminated soil might enhance their properties. The neighbors near the dumpsite find him suspicious. He uses one of his three remaining mushrooms to attempt to recreate the environment, which fails. Eventually, Frances and Marshall reunite, and she thanks him. Copano and Harrington use Amelia to research the mushroom, and Harrington tries to go on a date with her, but she gets stood up and Amelia doesn't show up. Frances tries to help Marshall, but they are sabatoged by some agents who try to kill Marshall. He is pursued by one of them on a bike, but the agent is blown up by a hidden mine.
5	"Star-Tel-Lite"	Sean Buckelew	Dave King	February 23, 2025 (2025-02-23)	0.19[11]
Marshall and Frances' neighbors help them out after Marshall heals their dying son, Tommy using their second to last mushroom. Frances secretly records this and sends a video to Rick, who shows it to Jonas during a dinner meeting. Jonas claims that the video is fake and Rick shouldn't be a CEO. Meanwhile, Copano and Harrington find where Marshall is located and secretly implement spy cameras by posing as a TV dish company known as Star-Tel-Lite. When Marshall and Frances go to the store, Frances is confronted by Hildy and her gang and quickly leaves. Later, Marshall and Frances go to the forest with Socrates where Socrates leads the path to where to grow their final mushroom. The next day, Marshall and Frances find out that the mushrooms have regrown, and they take one even though they are healthy to enter the white figures' mysterious realm. Marshall has a strange hallucination where he sees people getting turned into bacteria by the figures before waking up to police at the door. They tell him that he is under arrest for arson he didn't commit, and before he taken away to jail, Frances kisses him.
6	"In the System"	Vincent Tsui	Jon Foor	March 2, 2025 (2025-03-02)	N/A
Marshall finds himself incarcerated and denied bail, with his lawyer suggesting that someone powerful may be behind it. A mysterious hitman robs a gas station and calls 911 on himself to get sent to jail with Marshall to kill him and get money. Copano and Harrington find Socrates and give him to Frances. Frances takes Socrates and the harvested mushrooms back to Reutical after her mom encourages her to do so. Frances visits Marshall in jail, who tells her to meet him at Joshua Tree National Park if he can escape. After talking to Kiki, Frances' medicine research friend, who tells her about how Reutical saved lives with a popular heart disease medication, Frances finally takes the mushrooms to Rick, demanding a promotion to head of marketing, money, and other benefits in exchange, which he grants. Copano and Harrington are separated and assigned new partners as punishment for not recovering the mushrooms. Hildy also visits Marshall in jail and suggests that Frances has betrayed him. After thinking about Frances's past statements, Marshall uses a secret jail phone to call Reutical and asks to be forwarded to Frances. Frances picks up and hears noises from the jail, correctly guessing that it is Marshall who has called her. After Marshall silently hangs up, the hitman corners Marshall, pinning him down and preparing to inject him with poison.
7	"Blowfish"	Camille Bozec	Karey Dornetto	March 9, 2025 (2025-03-09)	N/A
A group of other inmates kills the hitman before he can inject Marshall, but demand Marshall use his herbalist knowledge to work for them as a doctor in exchange for saving his life. At her nursing home, Sonia climbs a tree but dies from a fall after a branch breaks beneath her. Frances is devastated but is reassured by Kiki and Kruger, and Reutical starts a fund to research the mushroom in her memory. Marshall discovers that Amelia is volunteering at his prison, which she started doing after using the mushroom she found during the DEA investigation to cure her sick son and learning Marshall was there. She offers to help him escape, and Marshall asks her to procure tetrodotoxin for him. She synthesizes it and gives it to him, but she also unknowingly doubles the dosage of the toxin. Off duty, Harrington visits Copano, who suggests that there is a conspiracy involved in the case. In his cell, Marshall drinks the toxin and chokes to death.
8	"Amelia & Wyatt"	Sean Buckelew	Dan Schofield	March 16, 2025 (2025-03-16)	N/A
The next night, Marshall resurrects and wakes up in the morgue, and Amelia unzips his cadaver pouch, saving him from suffocation. Amelia sneaks Marshall out, and along with Amelia's son Wyatt they head to Frances's apartment to retrieve Socrates. At a racecourse, Copano and Harrington surveil a meeting taking place between Jonas and Cecily, and agree to keep pursuing the case together. Frances breaks up with Nick. Jonas forces Rick to shut down Reutical's project commercializing the mushroom, predicting economic collapse, cartel control, and brutal war if the mushroom is made widely available. Marshall confronts Frances over taking the mushroom to Reutical, reclaiming Socrates and his remaining supply. Frances finds a drawing Wyatt left on her apartment wall showing how the mushroom grows in Socrates's feces. Copano and Harrington discover that Amelia checked out Marshall's body from the morgue. Marshall once again visits Zane for help with Socrates, and Wyatt and Marshall independently observe machine elf-like Lilliputian hallucinations that seem to have persisted from the mushroom trip. Jonas learns he has a serious medical issue. Frances is let go from Reutical; Rick, having saved a mushroom after leaving Reutical, offers that they work together. Marshall, Amelia, and Wyatt arrive back at Marshall's trailer near the chemical waste site to find that Hildy's gang and the neighbors have teamed up, researching how to grow the mushroom.
9	"Cliff's Edge"	Vincent Tsui	Sophie Kriegel	March 23, 2025 (2025-03-23)	N/A
Hildy convinces Marshall to grow the mushrooms, and everybody at the mushroom farm begins to produce them and give them away. Meanwhile, Frances and Rick go to a secret facility where they try developing a synthetic equivalent of the mushroom, which fails as the users show signs of schizophrenia and other ailments. Copano and Harrington find out that Marshall is still alive and working at the farm when they interrogate Zane, but while Harrington wants to report their findings, Copano asserts that there is a conspiracy at play, and decides to try to solve the Marshall case by himself. Harrington then presents the data to Cecily, who assigns her as an FBI agent to raid the farm. Back at the hospital, Jonas finds out that he is terminal, with only weeks left to live. He tries to find the mushroom but fails. Marshall, at the farm, starts to have more hallucinations of the white figures in his everyday life, and John, from the car accident, arrives at the farm, ranting about his life becoming a nightmare since using the mushroom. Marshall considers slowing down the mushroom giveaway and thinks about the side effects if they take too many. Meanwhile, Hildy and some other people at the farm are making a tincture of the Blue Angel without Marshall's knowledge or approval. Marshall also finds out that the Blue Angel is being sold for extremely high amounts of money. He warns Hildy about the dangers of the mushroom, and Hildy and Marshall go on a walk to discuss it. As they reach the edge of a cliff, Hildy shoves Marshall off, where he violently dies as he falls on several rocks.
10	"Raid"	Camille Bozec	Steve Hely	March 30, 2025 (2025-03-30)	N/A
Copano and Amelia arrive at the farm looking for Marshall. Copano eventually finds his corpse in the woods but resurrects him with a mushroom. Marshall then has a hallucination, where both he and Frances realize they may be able to communicate telepathically. Frances abruptly leaves a meeting with Rick and another CEO, and ends her partnership with Rick to find Marshall at Joshua Tree National Park. Jonas then visits the mushroom farm, and when the FBI begins their raid, he greedily takes several mushrooms at once, which leaves him in a terrifying state. Meanwhile, Copano tells Marshall to escape the raid and protect Socrates, while he stays behind to fend off the agents. However, Copano is wounded in a crossfire. The raid is successful and the mushrooms are destroyed, but Amelia, Wyatt, and Hildy get away. In the aftermath, Rick discovers and markets the mushroom's byproduct as "Sparkl," a food additive. Harrington gives Copano a mushroom in the hospital to help him heal, and she drives off into the desert to find Marshall and Frances. Hildy and her accomplices pour the Blue Angel tincture into a city's water tower. Zane acquires numerous tortoises from Peru. Marshall and Frances reunite at Joshua Tree and decide to continue their work growing the mushrooms.

Production

Development

Common Side Effects co-creators Joseph Bennett and Steve Hely were brought together and began development of the series in 2019 under production studio Bandera Entertainment founded by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels.^[12] Bennett and Hely sought to combine the crime thriller genre with comedy, inspired by the films of the Coen brothers, such as Burn After Reading.^[13] Inspiration for the story came from the co-creators' interest in medicine and the work of mycologist Paul Stamets, ethnobotanists Richard Evan Schultes, Terence McKenna and Wade Davis, and the chemist Albert Hofmann.^[14] The character Marshall was in part inspired by Stamets and "The Orchid Thief" John Laroche as he was portrayed in the film Adaptation.^[13] Another inspiration was the story of R. Gordon Wasson publishing an article about Psilocybin mushroooms and María Sabina in Life magazine and the dramatic consequences for the life of Maria Sabina once the article was published.^[14]

Animation

Animation for the series was produced by Green Street Pictures employing an international team of artists, including some working remotely from France, Portugal, Spain, and Mexico. Many of these artists worked on Scavengers Reign, a 2023 series also produced by Green Street and co-created by Bennett.^[15] Animation was produced in conjunction with Le Cube, a partner studio in Argentina.^[12]

Release

The series was first announced in June 2023, at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.^[7] The pilot episode premiered privately at the festival event the following year.

Reception

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating with an average rating of 8.7/10, based on 25 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "An addictive mix of expressive animation, heady concepts, and an offbeat sense of humor, Common Side Effects is a must-have prescription."^[16] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 80 out of 100 based on 6 critics, indicating "Generally Favorable" reviews.^[17]

References

1. "Common Side Effects". Green Street Pictures. Retrieved August 29, 2024.
2. Lincoln, Ross A. (July 9, 2024). "Adult Swim Brings 'Rick and Morty: The Anime,' AEW Wrestlers and More to Comic-Con 2024". TheWrap. Retrieved August 29, 2024.
3. Deckelmeier, Joe (August 21, 2024). "SDCC 2024 Interview: Common Side Effects Team Previews New Adult Swim Series". Screen Rant. Retrieved August 29, 2024.
4. Hibberd, James (December 12, 2024). "Mike Judge Takes on Big Pharma in 'Common Side Effects' Trailer". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved December 12, 2024.
5. Arvoy, Lee (February 21, 2025). "Your TV Source Roundup: 'Neighbours' Canceled, 'The Quiz with Balls' Renewed, 'When Life Gives You Tangerines' Trailer, ESPN and MLB Part Ways, 'Common Side Effects' Gets A Run On Toonami, and More!". TV Source Magazine. Retrieved February 27, 2025.
6. Milligan, Mercedes (March 28, 2025). "Adult Swim Orders Second Season Dose of 'Common Side Effects'". Animation Magazine. Retrieved March 28, 2025.
7. Porter, Rick (June 16, 2023). "Mike Judge, Greg Daniels Land Animated Series at Adult Swim". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 29, 2024.
8. Deckelmeier, Joe (August 21, 2024). "SDCC 2024 Interview: Common Side Effects Team Previews New Adult Swim Series". YouTube. Retrieved September 2, 2024.
9. @tarkstuff (February 12, 2025). "This is a bunch of designs I made for the first CSE episodes, most of which are based off the charming Joe Bennet and board artists sketches" – via Instagram.
10. "Common Side Effects: Season 1 | Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
11. "Common Side Effects". USTVDB. Retrieved February 13, 2025.
12. Bennett, Tara (January 30, 2025). "'Common Side Effects' Creators Joe Bennett And Steve Hely On Bringing Their Quirky Thriller To Adult Swim". Cartoon Brew. Retrieved February 21, 2025.
13. Jewett, Katelyn Mitchell (February 14, 2025). "Common Side Effects Interview: Co-Creators Talk New Adult Swim Show". Game Rant. Retrieved February 21, 2025.
14. "Magic Mushrooms Meet Corporate Conspiracy: Steve Hely on Adult Swim's Common Side Effects". Psychedelic Alpha. February 17, 2025. Retrieved March 4, 2025.
15. Zahed, Ramin (January 29, 2025). "Fascinating Fungi: 'Common Side Effects' Creators Raise the Curtain on Their Clever Animated Series". Animation Magazine. Retrieved February 21, 2025.
16. "Common Side Effects: Season 1". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved April 5, 2025.
17. "Common Side Effects: Season 1". Metacritic. Retrieved March 4, 2025.

Notes

1. Kelly Crews and Suzanna Makkos are credited as "Executive Producers for Williams Street."
2. Paige Boudreaux and Jonathan Roig are credited as "Producers for Williams Street." Jacey Bradley is credited as "Producer for Bandera."

External links

• Official website
• Common Side Effects at IMDb 
• Common Side Effects at Metacritic
• Common Side Effects at Rotten Tomatoes