Common Side Effects - A Cartoon Network original

[Lithos]

I'm getting some serious Satoshi Kon vibes with the art direction. Like it's a blend between Ian Worthington ("Big Top Burger" guy) and Kon's use of surreal hallucinations and dream sequences.

The music absolutely fits the show.

I kinda love Hildy as a villain. I also like that while people are sometimes goofy in this world, everyone's allowed to be competent. Even Rick. I hate characters that are stupid just for comedy's sake.

Spoiler: Musings

I'm wondering if they're doing the connectedness theme with mushrooms and mycelial networks. In episode 1, one of Marshall's vignettes he talks about how all the mushrooms are connected and "help" each other in distributing resources and the like.

Again, really hope they don't shit the bed season 2.

 

[Sekhmet]

I really enjoyed this season, and I'm glad it's getting another. I hope it keeps it up, because they've put down so many interesting pieces and characters. I don't have any particular expectations on where it'll go, I just hope it's something happy. I also hope it's as honest and realistic as the show has been with it's view of the world. That's likely to be it's particular failure point, as we know Marshall's high minded idealism has been shown to not be compatible with reality. I hope it's building to an interesting compromise.

Spoiler: On characters (minor spoilers at best)

Normally I hate buddy breakups, but Copano and Harrington feels very natural. Both parties are trying to do what they think is right and best for the other and it results in episode 10. Great characters from start to end.

Hildy and her crew I am incredibly interested in. I really didn't like her much at the start, but she's been a fascinating driver. Excited to see her chaos.

Standout character for me was honestly Rick. He developed into quite the genuine guy and that spray is going to have interesting implications for sure.

In the opposite vein is Frances, who I've come to really dislike. Treating Rick like that was the final straw. I'm still open and curious to see what's done with her going forwards. I hope she doesn't treat Marshall like she has everyone else, for the second time, but I anticipate he's going to get his heart broken pretty hard (again).

Marshall? I hope he comes out of this alright. One man can only trust so much

 

[Didnt Use Real Email Once]

Holy shit episode 10 had so much going on I thought it was over half way through. Great to see the S2 announcement, this show has it all tbh, an intriguing story and characters with beautiful background art throughout, and the animation and music choice is fantastic. Agreed on Rick being the standout character, besides the idea of Hank Hill as an aloof tech illiterate boss, in the last half of the season he's proven how he got to where he was at the start of the show in the first place, dude has founded a charity, second pharmaceutical - or were they going the supplement route I forget - company, and now a food flavoring company all within like half a year at the most.

I just hope they actually have a full plan for the story and don't end up having to make the characters act out of character in such a, well, character-focused story.

Spoiler: Episode 10, Mushrooms

As for the "Mushroom Men" to me it seems like the mushroom is letting people tap into a collective consciousness, it is how Marshall was able to send a message to Francis to meet at Elephant Rock (of course they both talked about it previously so it could still be a manifestation of will thing), or how loved ones or at least closely connected people keep showing up in each other's visions. I wonder if the little dudes won't end up being the "pure souls" of people, not so much that the mushrooms have feelings, but that they're letting you essentially see and, judging by Marshall getting saved from crashing his ice cream van, interact with ghosts. A soul or some souls have attached to Marshall and Frances for example, though The Shivering Truth-like eyeless one that spooked Frances in the motel room doesn't really fit, maybe it's been so long since she had a dose that was a sign that she's losing her connection to them? For Jonas, I think his extreme overdose has tossed him deep into the collective consciousness where he's struggling to keep his identity or sense of self. And he's probably partially being tortured and partially torturing himself with the flood of feelings that other people have towards him and his ilk.

Also, I cannot wait to see the effects of Hildy dumping the tincture into a town's water supply. Way more people are going to go batshit insane from suddenly tripping and seeing ghosts with no way to rationalize it just like that one guy Marshall saved on the side of the road did. Throw in the Internet's well known ability to connect insane people (that dude by himself was already all over the media!) and shit could get out of hand FAST.

 

[GungusDingaling]

Spoiler: Episode 10, Mushrooms

Spoiler: Mushroom Men

They seem like this show’s version of “DMT Elves”. Looking at it agnostically, is their motivation anything further than allowing the mushrooms to cultivate into human’s minds? From a Christian perspective, I wouldn’t trust them for a second. To me, it looks like the show’s getting at the same thing Dune was with the “don’t trust messiah characters”, or in this case don’t trust a miracle drug on first passing.

 

[Sundae]

I fianlly got around to watching the season finale earlier. Thoughts:

Spoiler

-I wasn't happy at first to see Jonas be able to get his hands on some mushrooms, but seeing him mentally trapped in that hellscape was satisfying.

-Sad to see Rusty was killed off. He was one of my favorite characters, I was hoping someone had managed to grab a few of the mushrooms and would bring him back, but it looks like he's gone for good. The damage from the gatling gun must have been too intense for the mushroom to heal.

-I was surprised to see Hildy have the tincture poured into a town's water supply. Figured she would rather try to sell it than do something like that.

-One of the most surprising things about this show was Rick's character arc. Previews made it look like he would be one of the main antagonists, only for him to have growth and depth as the show went on, showing that deep down he does want to help people with the mushroom (even if unlike Marshall he wants to charge for it). One of my favorite scenes from the show is the one of him on the golf course, drinking as he stares at the sunrise, contemplating everything while that awesome background music plays.

God I love this show. Can't wait for the second season!

 

[Local Wordmason]

I was pretty off base with a lot of my predictions (which I did predict I'll add). There were some I was right about just in a different way, I guess. It does seem like in a way they had to pivot the story in the last episode like they got renewed for a second season mid production. It feels like the story could have easily gone another way if it needed to end that season.

Spoiler: Season 1 Spoilers

I definitely agree with the theory of the mushrooms being some kind of mycelial network, especially with the point that Marshall made on the idea of a network sensing what people need and giving it to them. I didn't expect Hildy dumping a bunch of tincture in the water supply, it will be interesting to see what the implications are with the shared consciousness, and the implications of Rick using the mushroom in a food additive which may expose more and more people to the mass consciousness and end up being a huge problem when people start having hallucinations but not knowing why, it could be something where people start becoming a hivemind by basically being forcefully connected, kind of like how it seems Marshall and Francis seem to be connected from the time that they ate the mushroom together. I don't know what the deal is with Jonas, I don't think he's overdosing because that's not really something that had been established, nor is it something you have to deal with when taking massive amounts of hallucinogens. You don't "OD" you just trip really hard for a long time. If anything I would say he probably has a large amount of mental and physical healing and its shown that the mushroom takes time depending on how bad the damage is. Maybe there's an aspect to it that involves mental healing as well which is what Jonas is experiencing. Or it could be that he's being "punished" b y the mushroom, but I don't know if it has that amount of power or consciousness to do it, it almost feels like the symbolism is all just the mushroom directing things where they need to go. It would also explain the scene of Rick on a golf course at sunrise with a bunch of alcohol bottles and I think he was going to kill himself and ate a mushroom and experienced something similar. The whole story is about the allegory of the benefits of medicine and all of the different viewpoints that people have when it comes to something as simple as a plant with a specific chemical in it. I think the Mushroom lady with the son and the lackey that got arrested in the raid are going to be characters that get followed next season. You can tell Capano is cooking when he starts doing the one handed pushups, and Harrington gets a cool Kill Bill motorcycle so who knows what's going on with them but hopefully it'll be like my prediction and maybe Capano will join Marshall and Francis because he already knows they're at the center of it.