In a March 2025 interview with Vulture, “Deli Boys” creator Abdullah Saeed asserted that representation was not on his mind when he wrote the story of two spoiled Pakistani-American brothers grappling with their father’s sudden death and the newfound knowledge that their late Baba was a drug kingpin: “The heart of everything is the joke…I’m just letting the characters exist. And that’s where their emotional stories come in. They’re not forced. They’re not trying to please their parents. They’re not trying to justify their South Asian culture or rectify that culture with their American culture. That shit is boring.”
That shit is indeed boring, but “Deli Boys” isn’t. Though its narrative is hampered by a shorter run (season two only has six episodes versus season one’s 10) and a surprisingly sanitized Fred Armisen as a crime boss, the series is funnier than ever. In addition to wisely placing its bets on Poorna Jagannathan’s unmatched talents, Saaed and his writers use the inherent flexibility and humor of Hindi and Urdu in the dialogue, intensifying the series’ references to South Asian culture and making its characters, main and supporting, feel even more lived-in. The result is rich, joyous, and one of the funniest shows of the year.
Failson brothers Mir (Asif Ali) and Raj Dar (Saagar Shaikh) went through it in season one: just as they learned that their father Arshad (Iqbal Theba) was murdered, the culprit, family business associate Ahmad Uncle (Brian George, having a damn good time), went on the run. A bomb detonated inside the family’s last convenience store just as the brothers strolled outside, signaling a greater external threat. As season two begins, though, the brothers, guided by their indefatigable Lucky Aunty (Jagannathan), have turned things around. Now the biggest coke distributor in Philly, Dar Co., is in need of a money launderer.
Enter Max Sugar (Armisen), local casino owner and crime impresario. The Dars begin laundering money at his casino, but the brothers’ efforts to stabilize the family business are complicated by their ongoing quest for revenge against Ahmad Uncle. It doesn’t help that District Attorney Andrew Chadwater (Andrew Rannells) has made the eradication of Sugar’s casino, and therefore the Dar empire, a central part of his mayoral campaign. When Raj is framed for murder (and attains massive online fame à la Luigi Mangione), his defense lawyer, Danyal, is played by none other than Kumail Nanjiani, dressed like a matinee idol with charisma to match. His presence reignites the embers of a long-lost love with Lucky, which in turn jams up the workings of her newfound romance with Sugar.
There’s so much here that works, and very little that does not. Rannells is having a ball satirizing tough-on-crime conservatives; he won’t curse in public but will in private, he mentions 9/11 at the drop of a hat because “it belongs to everyone!” and has a bizarre, almost unseemly obsession with milk. Nanjiani racks up a ton of laughs in a frustratingly short amount of screentime. He and Jagannathan could hold their own in a romcom, especially when the writers marry ghazal (Urdu poetry) structure with Hindi curse words to convey whole worlds of history between their characters. Amita Rao, as Raj’s wife and social media manager, Nandika, steals every scene she’s in, walking confidently in clothes stolen from Lucky, letting just a little too much spill about their bedroom activities with complete nonchalance. I wanted an entire series starring Shahjehan Khan as Dar Co.’s head of distribution, Ali, and Lilly Singh as his wife Aisha, whose domestic spat, filled with Urdu curses and jabs at each other’s mothers, will be familiar to anyone who has spent time in a South Asian household. Shaikh and Ali, too, are finding new shades in their roles as brothers who must support each other just as much as they expand the family business.
Maybe the only component of season two, aside from the shorter episode count, that doesn’t work for me is Armisen. We’re told, and shown, just how violent and ruthless Sugar can be, and yes, his incipient romance with Lucky definitely elicits laughs, but Armisen just doesn’t commit to this like I know he can; he brought more personality to a minute-long scene on “Fallout.”
ASIF ALI, BRIAN GEORGE, POORNA JAGANNATHAN, SAAGAR SHAIKH
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter: this is, and has always been, the Lucky show. There is no emotion, no physical comedy routine, no action setpiece, to which Jagannathan is not wholly committed. Whether she weepingly calls a jailed Raj “my gaajar ka halwa” (“my carrot pudding”) or dismissively waves a terrified couple’s therapist back into a chair with her “emotional support gun,” Jagannathan is in complete command of “Deli Boys.” It helps that Cailey Breneman’s costumes land Lucky in the femme fatale hall of fame: animal prints, gorgeous leather purses, elegant silk jumpsuits, but everything with a little bit of edge, a little danger, a little metal, just like Lucky.
For all its cartoonish hijinks and “30 Rock”-esque bits (including a hysterical “Challengers” parody), “Deli Boys” works as well as it does because its performances are grounded. Its immersion in South Asian culture is deep-rooted but incidental, with loads of jokes about life from their perspective: a character running a bevy of security cameras is nicknamed “Patriot Act,” a white character’s declaration that “all men are innocent no matter what they’ve done” is something to which the brown characters react very differently.
There’s some cultural beauty too, which could have been expanded in a longer season: I was delighted by a flashback set at a party where musicians sing the 14th-century Sufi song “Chaap Tilak,” the opening lyrics of which could be considered foreshadowing. Wendy Wang’s original score, which has significantly upped its use of the tabla, might be the cherry on the sundae here; it helps cement the goofiness of these characters but also the necessity of Saeed’s voice.
How often do you watch a crime caper with South Asian classical instruments as part of the soundtrack? That’s right—not nearly often enough.
Entire season screened for review. Currently streaming on Hulu.
