Column The SF Path to Higher Consciousness Adult Swim’s Common Side Effects Is a Surprisingly Great SF Series There’s so much more to this thoughtful, affecting show than you might expect. By Dan Persons | Published on December 3, 2025 Credit: Cartoon Network Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Cartoon Network Head’s-up: We’re going to be dealing with spoilers right from the get-go, for anyone who has not seen the full first season. The most shocking thing about the Adult Swim animated series Common Side Effects (2025) is not its reenactment of a bloody, disastrous FBI raid. It’s not that numerous people die on-screen in horribly graphic ways. It’s not its exposé of the greed of Big Pharma, or the violence of the prison system, or the corruption of modern law enforcement, or its on-screen depiction of turtle defecation. No, what shocks me about Common Side Effects is that it uses Enya’s Caribbean Blue unironically. That may not sound so disconcerting. Trust me, given the venue, it is. Adult Swim is the evening component of The Cartoon Network, and an outlet best known for cynicism and snark, where a sketch on Robot Chicken might feature Dean Koontz feebly insisting his Zune is almost as good as Stephen King’s iPod, or where an entire series, Rick and Morty, is predicated on the thesis of “People suck, and so do you, and so do we.” Enya, with her sweet, ethereal vocals and her lilting, synthesized scores would seem not to be a major inspiration for this lot, but a prime target. (Indeed, over at MTV during South Park’s first season, there was a sequence where Stan’s grandfather trapped the boy in a room and, to give him a taste of the day-to-day torment of being old and enfeebled, forced him to listen to a pretty accurate send-up of Enya’s Orinoco Flow.) And yet, here Caribbean Blue is, in the final minutes of Common Side Effects’ season closer, backing up a montage showing where the show’s vast roster of characters have arrived in their journeys, for good or ill. And I think I know why. According to Enya herself—who credits poet, lyricist, and producer Roma Ryan as an important collaborator—the point of the song is to express how the power of imagination can alter one’s world…and yet within that sunny sentiment rests this enigmatic lyric: If every man says all he can,If every man is true.Do I believe the sky above,Is Caribbean blue? Well, that’s kinda dark, innit? I mean, every man is not true, never has been, never will be. If you want to strip the gender issue out of it (something I’m not sure should be done), not even every person is true. (As for any particular Persons, well, I ain’t no saint. It’s a fair cop.) Within all of the song’s light and whimsy, a doubt rests. The creators themselves are at best ambivalent about their own philosophy. Perhaps not by coincidence, Common Side Effects is just a tad ambivalent about the outlet delivering it. It’s a show about an amateur but dedicated mycologist, Marshall Cuso (voiced by Dave King, who also serves as a writer on the show), his former high school lab partner, Frances Applewhite (Emily Pendergast), and their adventures with the Blue Angel, a Peruvian mushroom that cures all ills (literally: wounds heal, bones mend, the near-dead rise). As befits an Adult Swim series, each episode offers up plenty of edgy humor, but beyond delivering laughs, the show clearly has another mission—a more affecting one. Earlier in that final episode, we see Frances driving along a deserted highway in the car she stole from her boss, the pharmaceutical exec Rick Kruger (Mike Judge, who’s also an executive producer and here is doing a kind-of de-twanged Hank Hill). Guilt-ridden from having betrayed the altruistic Marshall by bringing the Blue Angel to Rick, she has fled a strategic business lunch between her boss and a financier in order to race toward a long-delayed reunion with her friend. As she drives, she listens to a series of voicemails Rick has left her. They go from befuddled—“If you have a chance, if you could just check in, or something”—to annoyed—“Look, I have lunch with J.P. Morgan today and they want to see Frances”—to threatening—“I don’t want to get lawyers involved.” But after that progression, Rick leaves a one final, telling message, “So just so you know, this is not about money. This is about me being worried about you.” And here’s the thing: For all that Rick is the feckless, shallow CEO of the wonderfully named Reutical Pharmaceuticals—constantly in fear for his job; ever intent on the quest for profit; and annoyingly dependent on Frances to perform such mundane tasks as programming a hotel TV—when he says this, you believe him. Across the course of the series, it becomes clear there’s more to the relationship between Frances and Rick than just employee and employer. He obviously sees himself as the woman’s mentor, maybe shading into an almost paternal role, and one can sense that Frances has a kind of grudging affection for the man. While Judge’s flat intonations play to Rick’s cynicism and world-weariness, that inherent Hank Hill-ness also adds a warmth that lets you know the character is more than the stereotypical money-grubber. In a broader way, Common Side Effects makes a cottage industry out of breaking stereotypes. A family of upstate New York rednecks (is that a thing?) is gun-happy and eager to cash in on the mushroom, but have their own sense of integrity and clearly love each other. A pair of DEA agents are dedicated to their mission, but also are endearingly goofy, bopping to whatever song pops up on the radio. Even the production of Common Side Effects breaks stereotype, jettisoning the flat, sketchy look of many Adult Swim series and taking hefty inspiration from Japanese anime. Produced by the Buenos Aires animation studio Le Cube under supervising director Benjy Brooke, the action sequences, especially that calamitous FBI raid, are impressive, while the character designs break away from established norms, featuring compact bodies supporting large, round heads with faces centered in the middle (think of all the satirical distortions of certain political figures, but without the malice). The look overall is a notable departure from co-creator Joseph Bennett’s previous works, the ecological Rube Goldberg SF short Scavengers (2016) and its series follow-up Scavengers Reign (2023). Those titles owed a lot to the style of the adult anthology comic Heavy Metal, particularly the work of artist Moebius. Here, perhaps reflecting the live-action background of co-creator Steve Hely—among his credits are Veep and The Office—the emphasis is not on rendering a fantastic world with the clean, elemental lines of print media, but on giving animated characters space to live, breathe, and act. Which they do, to powerful effect. For a series that’s both a send-up of paranoid thrillers and a pretty accomplished paranoid thriller in its own right, what gives the show its power is the credible, relatable portrayal of these characters and their experiences. No rotoscoping appears to have been involved, but through the use of large, expressive eyes and subtle nuances of acting, the characters come off as profoundly, touchingly human. Watch Frances on a phone call with her mother, who has just been roused from her dementia by the Blue Angel, and see if the gradations of emotion that play across her face as Frances realizes what has happened don’t move you. It’s more emotion than one would expect from a show that also indulges in psychedelic interludes where, tiny, stoic, featureless men frolic among abstract shapes. There’s a good reason why the animators have worked hard to get us involved with the fates of these players. Connection, between us and the characters and between the characters themselves, is a major theme of the series. Bennett clearly has a fascination with the concept of interconnectedness—his Scavengers projects expressed the idea through the symbiotic and parasitic ecology of an alien world, and in Common Side Effects he uses the idea of a mycelial network (thank you, Star Trek: Discovery) to advance an intriguing notion: In addition to mending bones, healing wounds, and vanquishing cancer, the Blue Angel sends its beneficiaries into the realm of those little frolicking dudes, a place Cuso dubs the “Portal,” where one may get a glimpse of one’s true nature, whether one likes it or not. But even after the healing is done, the link to the Portal remains, bleeding into our tangible world and connecting all those who have visited. In her flight from Rick, Frances encounters a Portal being morphing into all the people who matter in her life, while another Portal being (or maybe the same one?) guides Marshall to an eventual reunion with Frances. That sense of becoming aware that we are all one with the universe is something apparently common to those who have taken psilocybin trips. (I wouldn’t know myself, but it’s tempting). It’s clear that as the season closes (season two has happily already been green-lit), a number of those who have benefitted from the Blue Angel are getting networked together in a way they hadn’t expected. That closing montage, set to Caribbean Blue, carries moments both devastating and ironic. The rednecks mourn the loss of one of their family during the FBI raid. Marshall’s brother uncrates a load of turtles that are crucial to the propagation of the Blue Angel (turns out the secret ingredient is turtle shit). Rick, having been foiled in exploiting the mushroom’s healing properties, settles for marketing it as a super-tasty food additive. And Frances and Marshall sit together, watching the sun set over a desert, as Marshall observes, “Maybe if we do everything right, we can heal the world.” For an Adult Swim series, that’s an uncommonly hopeful attitude. In reality, there will be no magic mushroom that will cure all the world’s ills. But the metaphor that Common Side Effects offers is a compelling one: That there is more to humanity that connects us than divides us. The creators, through their artistry and empathy, have united us with these characters—I would like to think that they offer up this communion in the hope that we will take the hint, and move forward from there. I’m not kidding about this: Second only to Severance, Common Side Effects is one the best SF series this year (and it’s been a pretty damn good year). That it’s on a network too frequently dismissed as TV for stoners (and yes, the whole psychedelic aspect plays to that demo) is unfortunate. Look past stereotypes, as the creators have done, and what you find is a top-notch work of imaginative fiction, with excellent production, writing, and performances. Have you checked it out? What do you think? Am I overstating things? We have the comments section below for your thoughts. Be friendly, not cruel in your entries. We’re all in this together.[end-mark] The post Adult Swim’s <i>Common Side Effects</i> Is a Surprisingly Great SF Series appeared first on Reactor.

President Donald Trump is pardoning Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas after the Biden administration charged him and his wife with bribery. Trump announced on Truth Social a “full and unconditional PARDON of beloved Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, and Imelda.” “Henry, I don’t know you,” the president wrote, “but you can sleep well tonight—Your nightmare is finally over.” Former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice brought charges against Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, in May 2024 for bribery, money laundering, working on behalf of a foreign government, and conspiracy. Cueller was one of the biggest Democrat critics of the Biden border crisis, which he described as “just letting everybody in.” “For years, the Biden Administration weaponized the Justice System against their Political Opponents, and anyone who disagreed with them,” Trump wrote in his post announcing the pardon. “One of the clearest examples of this was when Crooked Joe used the FBI and DOJ to ‘take out’ a member of his own Party after Highly Respected Congressman Henry Cuellar bravely spoke out against Open Borders, and the Biden Border ‘Catastrophe.’ “Sleepy Joe went after the Congressman, and even the Congressman’s wonderful wife, Imelda, simply for speaking the TRUTH,” Trump continued. “It is unAmerican and, as I previously stated, the Radical Left Democrats are a complete and total threat to Democracy! They will attack, rob, lie, cheat, destroy, and decimate anyone who dares to oppose their Far Left Agenda, an Agenda that, if left unchecked, will obliterate our magnificent Country.” The post BREAKING: Trump Pardons Democrat Rep Indicted Under Biden appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Should Presidents Call Groups of People Garbage?

Little Shop Of Horrors: Down Under.

Republicans’ prospects in the coming midterms and in 2028 depend on whether the party delivers on the core promises of President Trump’s 2024 mandate. Analysts can debate which element of that mandate carries the most weight — taming inflation, avoiding foreign entanglements, or restoring American manufacturing — but one commitment stands out for its clarity and its political power. It sits at No. 2 on agenda 47: “Carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.”Promise No. 1 — sealing the border — is already well underway. That makes mass deportation the decisive test of the coalition that put Trump back in office.Voters did not support a symbolic crackdown on illegal immigration. They supported a measurable, large-scale operation.Voters who formed this coalition expect results, not excuses. If they sense drift or retreat, enthusiasm collapses. And once that energy collapses, the old Republican apparatus regains its opening to steer the party back toward a pre-Trump agenda — even if that shift results in losing Congress or the White House in 2028.A party cannot hold a coalition together if it fails to deliver on the promises that built it.The Eisenhower standardTrump set a high bar for himself when he compared his plan to the 1954 Eisenhower operation. He did that because the illegal immigration crisis has reached historic levels, and because voters, in poll after poll, signaled support for mass deportation on a scale few would have imagined a decade ago. They reached a simple conclusion: The country has been pushed past its limit.As 2025 closes, however, the numbers fall short of expectations. Even the administration’s most generous internal projections place this year’s removals around 600,000. That figure includes categories beyond the Immigration and Customs Enforcement removals most Americans associate with deportation. The true ICE number will be lower.But even accepting the 600,000 estimate, the figure amounts to only 4.2% of the conservative estimate of 14 million illegal immigrants in the country — or 2.9% of Trump’s own 21 million estimate. No one knows the exact number, but everyone can see this: The removals remain far below the mandate.The 1954 comparison underscores the gap. Eisenhower’s operation removed or induced the departure of roughly one million illegal immigrants out of an estimated two to five million — roughly 30% using a middle-range estimate. Today’s effort hasn’t come close to those numbers. We’re not even in the same hemisphere.Funding must move nowThe Trump administration faces obstacles Eisenhower never did: a legal system engineered to delay deportations indefinitely; an activist judiciary hostile to enforcement; state and local officials who obstruct federal immigration law; and a political climate in which ICE agents face sustained hostility and, in some cases, violence. The environment is different.But meaningful action remains possible.The administration should begin by pushing the $45 billion allocated to ICE through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into immediate, strategic deployment. That requires industrial-size detention infrastructure, not scattered partnerships with small facilities dressed up with branded names. A mass deportation program demands a foundation capable of sustaining it.The second step carries political risk: rejecting the narrowing of “mass deportation” to criminal illegal immigrants alone. That redefinition cannot stand. With only about 500,000 criminal illegal immigrants in the country, focusing exclusively on that group guarantees a token enforcement effort, not a mass removal program.Voters did not support a symbolic crackdown. They supported a measurable, large-scale operation.RELATED: Judges break the law to stop Trump from enforcing it Photo by Scott Olson/Getty ImagesNo more PR stuntsQuantity requires worksite enforcement — the same strategy that drove the 1954 operation. Concentrating enforcement where illegal immigrants gather in large numbers is the only credible way to meet the promise. Anything less becomes a public-relations exercise.Political and corporate interests will fight tooth and nail to stymie the effort. They prefer an enforcement regime that preserves cheap labor, avoids political controversy, and allows them to claim credit for supporting “border security” without bearing any of the cost.But the country needs a policy that matches the scale of the problem, not a performance of seriousness designed to placate donors and editorial boards.Republicans must treat this mandate as a matter of political survival. If they fail to meet it, they risk losing the very coalition that returned Trump to office. The result is predictable: an establishment revival inside the GOP and a collapse of populist momentum heading into 2028.Voters asked for decisive action. They asked for measurable progress. They asked for a departure from the decades of drift that allowed the crisis to grow. Now they expect the administration to deliver.

Deputies from the Oneida County Sheriff's Office in upstate New York responded to a reported physical altercation involving a weapon in Vernon on Monday evening, officials said. Vernon is about 40 minutes east of Syracuse.It was reported that an individual in the 3300 block of Simmons Road was acting erratically and pointed what was believed to be a handgun at two victims, officials said.'That didn't work out so well for him apparently.'The two victims tried to retreat into a nearby residence, but the suspect advanced toward them with the weapon, officials said.A fight then broke out between the suspect and one of the victims, officials said, and the victim managed to get the weapon away from the suspect.Arriving deputies took the suspect into custody without issue, officials said.RELATED: Video: Woman pulls male intruder out of her car, throws him to the ground with ease — while her amazed husband watches Image source: Oneida County (N.Y.) Sheriff's OfficeThe suspect was identified as Glenn A. Wallis, 40, of Vernon, officials said, adding that Wallis was taken to the Kurt B. Wyman Law Enforcement Building.Wallis was charged with two counts of menacing in the second degree — a class A misdemeanor — along with one count of harassment in the second degree, which officials defined as a "violation."However, officials said a member of the Criminal Investigation Unit also charged Wallis with one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree, which is a class D felony.According to WUTR-TV, the weapon that Wallis was brandishing was a pistol-style pellet gun.Wallis was then taken to and held at the Oneida County Correctional Facility to await a hearing that was scheduled for Tuesday, officials said.Wallis was still behind bars Wednesday morning, according to the jail record Blaze News reviewed. The jail record also indicates that Wallis' criminal possession of a weapon charge is a "previous conviction."Comments under WUTR's story about the incident on Yahoo News were none too kind to the arrestee:"He appears to have brought a toy gun to an old-fashion[ed] beat down," one commenter said."Normal behavior for those a little further down the evolutionary ladder," another commenter wrote."A pellet gun? He should thank the Good Lord it didn't happen in some areas of Texas! He also looks VERY good for the circumstances, 'cause those two victims had mercy on him. There are folks who would've beat him TWICE as hard because it was a pellet gun!" another commenter stated."That didn't work out so well for him apparently," another commenter said."This is what FAFO looks like!" another commenter declared.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

New England Patriots running back TreVeyon Henderson decided to bring attention to the worldwide persecution of Christians while on the field Monday night.The rookie from Virginia decided to promote his faith through the NFL's My Cause My Cleats program, which allows players to champion a cause or nonprofit of their choosing on their cleats during games.'I'm living proof of what the mercy of God can do.'On "Monday Night Football," Henderson rushed for 67 yards on just 11 carries in a 33-15 win over the New York Giants. During the game, the 23-year-old wore cleats dedicated to persecuted Christians around the world.Henderson partnered with the Global Christian Relief Fund to promote messages like, "Pray for Persecuted Christians," "Faith Endures," and Bible passage Matthew 5:10: "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."The shoe design featured raised crosses, praying hands, and blood drops to symbolize the blood of Christ and the blood of martyrs. Additionally the cleats featured a map highlighting regions around the world where Christians are persecuted, including Central America, Southeast Asia, and most of Africa.RELATED: Rookie NFL QB declared the new Obama — and the 'most powerful black man since 2009' FOXBOROUGH, MASS. - DECEMBER 1: A detailed view of the My Cause My Cleats worn by TreVeyon Henderson #32 of the New England Patriots prior to the game against the New York Giants. (Photo by Kathryn Riley/Getty Images) The same day, Henderson shared a video on X from Global Christian Relief with the caption, "Will you stand with them?" The video showcased Christian suffering from around the world.The Ohio State alumnus has not been shy about showing his faith publicly. The pinned post on his X page from 2024 came at the height of his college career and focused on a strong Christian message."I'm living proof of what the mercy of God can do, for all the things I've done and the choices made that I regret I would still be lost," Henderson wrote last July. "But Jesus took the old me and he made it new, that's what the mercy of God can do," the star added, before citing Ephesians 2:4-5, "But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God's grace that you have been saved!)"RELATED: Army, Navy release stunning uniforms ahead of historic matchup honoring America's 250th birthday The support for persecuted Christians has gained mainstream momentum recently, even from the likes of platinum-selling rapper Nicki Minaj.At the beginning of November, she shared a post from President Donald Trump and wrote that she felt a "deep sense of gratitude" that she can "freely worship God" in the United States. The president's post said that Christianity was under threat in Nigeria with thousands of Christians being killed.Minaj, whose real name Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty, took her cause to the United Nations at an event organized by U.S. entities."In Nigeria, Christians are being targeted," Minaj said, according to the BBC. "Churches have been burned, families have been torn apart ... simply because of how they pray."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A doctor who pleaded guilty to selling ketamine to late "Friends" actor Matthew Perry is set to be sentenced in court. According to the Associated Press, Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who admitted to selling the actor large doses of ketamine, will be sentenced during a hearing on Wednesday. His lawyers have called a prison sentence 'neither necessary nor warranted.'Plasencia, 44, is not accused of selling Perry the dose of ketamine that is believed to have killed him on October 28, 2023. Perry had been taking lower doses of surgical anesthetic ketamine as a treatment for depression and sought more from Plasencia after his doctor denied him the amount he desired. Plasencia admitted to selling Perry higher doses of ketamine despite having knowledge of Perry's substance-abuse problems.RELATED: 'Friends' star Matthew Perry dead at 54, actor allegedly drowned in hot tub Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty ImagesAccording to court documents, Plasencia texted another doctor saying that Perry was a "moron" who could be exploited.“Rather than do what was best for Mr. Perry — someone who had struggled with addiction for most of his life — defendant sought to exploit Perry’s medical vulnerability for profit,” the prosecution’s sentencing memo said.Perry struggled with addiction for many years. U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett is expected to give Plasencia three years in prison after he pleaded guilty in July to four counts of distribution of ketamine.His lawyers, who have asked for leniency since he has already lost his medical license, clinic, and career, have called a prison sentence "neither necessary nor warranted." Perry's family members and others are expected to be given a chance to speak prior to the sentencing. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Elissa Slotkin Telling Trump to Hold Hegseth Accountable for His Actions MELTS Hypocrisy Detectors

Google rolled out Google Photos Recap for 2025 with a few new features, including Gemini integration, CapCut edits, and content exclusion.