The "Prestige" Adult Swim Era
Adult Swim used to be the place for 11-minute fever dreams and stoner comedy. Common Side Effects is something different. With a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and a heavy 8.5 on IMDb, this is clearly aiming for the "prestige TV" mantle. It’s a serialized conspiracy thriller that happens to be animated. If you’ve noticed your teen gravitating toward complex, cynical stories about how the world is broken, this is the current gold standard. The show skips the usual "weird for the sake of weird" tropes. Instead, it builds a world where the stakes feel heavy and the plot actually moves forward.
Mushrooms and Malice
The plot follows Marshall and Frances, high school friends who stumble onto a rare mushroom that could essentially cure the world’s diseases. Naturally, the federal government and big pharma want them stopped. This isn't a "drug trip" show. It’s a corporate greed show. The tension is real. We’re talking about characters being stalked by the DEA and engineered plane crashes. It’s less Family Guy and more of a classic political thriller.
Before you let a younger teen dive in, check out our parent's guide to Adult Swim’s big pharma satire to see if the surreal visuals and mature themes are a fit for your household.
Who is this for?
If your kid spent their middle school years obsessed with Gravity Falls and moved on to Inside Job or The Boys, they will likely find this essential. It rewards paying attention. It doesn't reset at the end of the episode, and the mystery is actually worth solving.
The "Common Sense 14+" rating feels like a floor, not a ceiling. The profanity is constant and the themes are bleak. It’s a great pick for a parent and an older teen to watch together, mostly because the conspiracy elements are grounded enough to actually spark a conversation about how the real world works. It’s a cynical show, but those high audience scores suggest the writing is smart enough to earn that cynicism rather than just being edgy for the sake of it. If you want something that treats the audience like they have a high IQ, this is the one to put on the list.
