https://blacknerdproblems.com/common-side-effects-review/
The title should speak for itself, but before I go off on what I promise is a completely relevant tangent, let me be very clear.
The latest Adult Swim series, Common Side Effects, brought to you by Joe Bennett of Scavengers Reign (one of the best animated series on MAX and Netflix both foolishly didn’t review) and Steve Hely of Veep fame (a series that needs no introduction) and executively produced by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, who you recognize as the team behind King of the Hill, is really, really good. Within the first four episodes that were made available for review, it cemented itself as a brilliant piece of timely speculative fiction that had me utterly enthralled.
And the modifier “timely” is super important, so it’s now time for that completely relevant tangent before I continue gushing about the series.
My first job after I finished undergrad was in Healthcare Information Technology. You know what? It’s been eleven years. I’m a very easy person to find on the internet. I worked for Epic Healthcare Systems. If you need a primer on what exactly Epic is, may I offer the following curated short from Dr. Glaucomflecken.
The point stands, in order to work in the healthcare sector, you have to learn about how healthcare works. And oh my god! I can tell you that when I learned about surgical price markup tables in 2013 I changed as a person. Then when I was diagnosed with diabetes in 2020 and learned about the production costs of insulin versus the going market price, I changed even more.
My mother was a pediatrician, so naturally I grew up with a reverence towards doctors, towards people who endeavor to help people get better. As an adult, looking at the healthcare industry under the capitalist lens, between pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and increasing drive to private equity, I can’t help but want to scream constantly.
So perhaps, I was naturally predisposed to like Common Side Effects, a story about the strange series of events that occur after a miraculous mushroom that serves as a catch-all panacea is discovered. And almost certainly, when I took a note after the first episode that the most distressing part of the show was not any of the ailments shown, not the surrealist elements with clear DNA for Scavengers Reign, but the regular humans participating in the capitalist framework I knew that I was going to love this show.
The series opens with your stock pharmaceutical conference where our protagonist Marshall chastises the CEO (brilliantly voiced by Mike Judge) for illegal medical waste dumping, and by chance the CEO’s assistant Francine happens to be Marshall’s old high school lab partner. And whether you call it fate, kismet, or destiny, Marshall and Frances’ paths become intertwined the moment Marshall demonstrates the power of a blue mushroom and asks a simple question: “what if there was a medicine that could heal like almost anything?”
What follows in the next four episodes is an absolutely enthralling thriller series with a deep reverence for science and science fiction and a deft understanding of satire, which comes as no surprise given the show’s pedigree. The animation is clean, fluid, and super expressive. The voice acting is phenomenal. Dave King anchors the series with his performance of Marshall, a person who just wants the world to just be a modicum better, and plays brilliantly off of Emily Pendergast’s Frances. I already alluded to the fact that Mike Judge as Rick Kruger, a pharmaceutical CEO works scarily well. Rounding out the main cast is Joseph Lee Anderson as Copano and Martha Kelly (who I adored in Carol & the End of the World) as Harrington, two DEA agents in charge of tracking down Dave.
Everyone’s performance is deeply… human. These are familiar faces and familiar voices. You likely went to school with a Marshall and Frances. You worked with a Copano or Harrington. You had a boss like Kruger. Common Side Effects prides itself in being a series about regular people trying to survive in the current system and there just so happens to be a mushroom that threatens the very foundation of the healthcare industry.
There is not a single wasted beat in each of the episodes 20-some minute run time. It tugs at your heartstrings, it makes you laugh, it makes you clench your fist in anger. The show works because on a fundamental level it is a show that understands the current landscape of American healthcare and has engineered a brilliant story on top of it. It is going to be my obsession for the first quarter of 2025, and I hope you will join me.
Common Side Effects is a prime example of why animation is a capable storytelling medium. It is riveting, it is relevant, and I hope you tune in when it premieres on February 2nd.
Want to get Black Nerd Problems updates sent directly to you? Sign up here! Follow us on BlueSky, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and Instagram!
The post Start Your 2025 Media Regime Knowing that ‘Common Side Effects’ is Incredible appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.