By Variety | Created at 2025-03-06 06:21:03 | Updated at 2025-03-06 13:13:33
8 hours ago
Millennials of a certain vintage may know “Deli Boys” creator Abdullah Saeed from his cannabis-related content for Vice, including shows like “Weediquette” and “Bong Appetit.” With his new Hulu sitcom, Saeed has both made the switch to scripted series and upgraded to harder stuff. The namesake protagonists of “Deli Boys,” two spoiled rich kids who suddenly lose their father, are stunned to learn their family legacy isn’t actually a regional chain of Delaware Valley convenience stores: It’s the cocaine smuggling ring for which the delis were just a distribution front.
A crime comedy with a heavy skew toward the comedy, “Deli Boys” sets its unserious tone with the slapstick demise of patriarch Baba Dar (Iqbal Theba), who gushes blood after taking a golf ball to the head as his slack-jawed failsons Mir (Asif Ali) and Raj (Saagar Shaikh) look on in horror. Mir and Raj are a classic odd couple, the former an uptight MBA type engaged to a nice pharma rep and the latter a charismatic party boy who boasts an “orgy cabal” in lieu of a single partner. But when an FBI raid robs the brothers of their worldly possessions and reveals the existence of “Dark DarCo,” the internal name for the Dar empire’s true source of income, Mir and Raj partner up to outsmart the feds and ascend the criminal hierarchy.
“Deli Boys” is mostly a farce that transposes “Godfather”-style tropes about immigrant communities who turn to extralegal means to gain a foothold in the States onto Pakistani Americans, who’ve historically lacked a corollary to the Italian Mafia or Jewish Murder, Inc. Dark DarCo smuggles bricks of powder inside jugs of achar, the pungent South Asian pickle, and a popular fixer for disappearing dead bodies (Baba is far from the only casualty in the 10-episode season) is known as the “Murder Walla.” In lieu of capos, this organization has maliks, who start jockeying control once Baba’s death creates a power vacuum.
This approach flirts with sketch comedy stretched beyond its natural limits, but is fully validated in the form of Poorna Jagannathan’s Auntie Lucky, the Dars’ doting family friend who turns out to be a cold-blooded queenpin. Jagannathan is a warm maternal presence on Netflix’s coming-of-age comedy “Never Have I Ever”; here, she gets to let loose with ostentatious animal prints and frequent expletives. Where Ali and Shaikh have to stay somewhat grounded as audience surrogates in far over their heads, Jagannathan can sink her teeth into a juicy, vampy role that walks away with the show.
Despite the deadly stakes, “Deli Boys” is much closer to a sitcom than a “Sopranos”-esque drama. The genre fits with the principals’ CVs; besides Saeed, executive producers include showrunner and “2 Broke Girls” alumna Michelle Nader, “SNL” veteran Sudi Green and “Girls” co-showrunner Jenni Konner. Mir breaks up and reunites with his fiancée Bushra (Zainne Saleh) in the space of an episode, while another revolves around the Super Bowl party — timely! Go Birds! — of local mobster Chickie Lozano (Kevin Corrigan) and his daughter GG (Sofia Black D’Elia). (One of the Gs stands for Gelato, another cue for how much to take the show’s plot at face value.)
You never feel particularly concerned for the Dars’ fate, in part because “Deli Boys” favors a brisk pace over sustained tension. The brothers’ rise from total neophytes to sharing the role of “Co-Chief Saab” is swift, the speed only amplified by sub-30 minute runtimes and a binge-style drop. And the FBI agents on their tail, Mercer (Alexandra Ruddy) and Simpson (“The Righteous Gemstones” star Tim Baltz), are about as good at their jobs as the Dar boys are at theirs. To commemorate her first-ever raid, Mercer takes a selfie with her stunned targets.
If “Deli Boys” is sincere about anything, it’s representation. The project comes from Onyx Collective, the Disney imprint focused on creators of color that faces an uncertain future as the industry’s pendulum swings back against DEI under a second Trump regime. Desi talent like Sakina Jaffrey and “Queer Eye” star Tan France drop in for guest spots, and Nisha Ganatra of “Better Things” directs the pilot. The beats of the story may be familiar, but the players and milieu are just unusual enough to hold our attention. I can’t recall seeing another fictional drug deal nearly derailed over grievances from the 1947 partition.
Like many shows that play gore and hustle for laughs, “Deli Boys” can struggle to lay an emotional foundation. I wasn’t especially concerned about the central family’s tensions or eroding moral character, though both are played up for pathos as the season enters its final stretch. But the comedy itself, especially when entrusted to the likes of Jagannathan and Brian George as her internal rival Ahmad, gathers enough momentum to make the show a light and easy ride.
All 10 episodes of “Deli Boys” are now available to stream on Hulu.
