One of the most anticipated projects on display at the 2026 Annecy Animation Festival is the second season of “Common Side Effects.”
A work-in-progress session offered first looks from the show. Its creators Joe Bennett and Steve Hely as well as director Camille Bozec and executive producer Benjy Brooke of Green Street Pictures also ran through how Season 2 sought to expand on the first in scope of both its narrative and aesthetic.
The new footage, taken from the Season 2 premiere, picks up immediately where the end of Season 1 left off, with Marshall (Dave King) and Frances (Emily Pendergast) trying to figure out the best way to create an ethical, grass roots method of distributing the “Blue Angel,” a luminous blue mushroom which has the ability to cure all wounds and ailments.
The clip picks up on them hiking in Joshua Tree, intercutting with DEA Agent Harrington (Martha Kelly) in hot pursuit on motorcycle. After a tense standoff, the next scene follows on into a montage of Marshall and Frances travelling to Oregon, the scene playfully scored to “Blue Angel” by Roy Orbison (Marshall is depicted hitting a high note, before a match cut to him snoring).During the panel, Brooke described the show as “a thriller series which plays off the history of thrillers,” continuing to say that in loose terms, if the first season was “‘The Big Lebowski’ meets ‘Michael Clayton,'” the follow-up trends more towards “‘The Insider meets ‘Indiana Jones. ‘” (“Erin Brockovich” is also mentioned repeatedly.)
