A raucous, bloody, and hilarious take on traditional organized crime tropes, creator Abdullah Saeed’s Deli Boys is the funniest show of the new year. While lovingly indebted to the mob mentality and drug trade tropes exhibited in the likes of Scarface, Breaking Bad, and The Godfather, Deli Boys also boasts a killer sense of humour, perfectly paired leads, and a refreshingly specific cultural perspective. It’s silly, snappy, and often quite heartfelt, displaying all the qualities of a series that starts strong but can only get better with time.
Raj (Saagar Shaikh) and Mir Dar (Asif Ali) are Pakistani-American brothers from Philadelphia who’ve been raised in lives of privilege, but couldn’t be more different. High strung Mir has worked tirelessly in school and is eager to take over the expanding business established by his father (Iqbal Theba), which started out as a modest chain of delis throughout the Delaware Valley. Raj, on the other hand, has figured out that he doesn’t have to work a day in his life if he doesn’t want to, preferring to just go with the flow; meaning that he smokes a ton of weed and lives with his poly, Afro-futurist shaman/girlfriend, Prairie (Alfie Fuller), in slacker harmony.
But after their father’s sudden, unexpectedly brutal death, Raj and Mir find their lives in disarray. The FBI – led by the eager and driven Agent Mercer (Alexandra Ruddy) – have begun an investigation that takes everything from the brothers and leaves them penniless and confused. The only asset left remaining is the first deli ever opened by their father. Seeing it as their only ticket back to rebuilding dad’s empire, Mir and Raj reluctantly decide to see about running the store themselves. But as soon as they arrive, the brothers are informed by dad’s closest associate, Lucky (Poorna Jagannathan), that the family business isn’t all about slinging sandwiches, coffee, and snacks. Dad’s real hustle involved using all of his stores as fronts in an elaborate drug running empire, and his death has now left a power vacuum at the top. Eager and desperate to regain their status, Mir and Raj dive headfirst into a world they know nothing about and a family legacy that dad tried to shield them from.
Deli Boys is a work of maximalist bliss, in terms of its elevated approach to comedy and organized crime tropes. But Saeed has also crafted a fascinating character study amid all the theatrics. While Raj and Mir fit the tried and true dynamic of siblings where one is a stressed out overachiever and the other is a perpetually stoned push-over, Ali and Shaikh are given plenty of rich details to work with and create a winning, wholly believable dynamic. For Raj, status is key, and he’ll stop at nothing to make sure he provides his overly doting and nosy fiancee, Bushra (Zainne Saleh), with a storybook life. He has trained his whole life to take over the family business, and not even the revelation that his dad worked in the drug trade is going to change that. Mir is the kind of guy who defies expectations, making a laid back first impression that masks his intuition, tenacity, and the love that he never quite gets in return from his brother. They aren’t a perfect pair, but like many siblings, there’s a balance in personalities that ends up working to their advantage more often than not. Ali and Shaikh exhibit plenty of star power, and as the show goes on and the brothers get deeper into the criminal underworld (including interactions with Italian, Vietnamese, and Peruvian crime families), the latter makes a strong case that he deserves an Emmy for his work. In real life, neither would be much of a pleasure to be around, but Saeed and the leads make it so the viewer invests in their wellbeing. In time, the viewer learns to understand and care for them like they’ve become part of the family.
But beyond the exploits of the brothers, Saeed and the creative team have turned Deli Boys into an exceptionally funny mob world farce that gives the underrated talents of Jagannathan (perhaps best known as the mother on the dearly missed teen comedy Never Have I Ever) her best platform to date. As the concerned, conniving, and cunning Lucky, Jagannathan has a juicy role that keeps evolving in brilliant ways. Her desire to stay in control of the DarCo empire runs afoul of the dead leader’s other right-hand capo, Ahmad (Brian George), a posh, gay, condescending, misogynist who also wants to lay claim to the throne. Mir and Raj are equal parts help and hindrance throughout Lucky and Ahmad’s power plays, but they also work quite brilliantly as a team when called upon to do so. Deli Boys thrives on this dynamic where the viewer knows the brothers are trustworthy, but the motives of everyone around them remain in doubt.
Deli Boys is driven by character, culture, and setting, right down to an amusing set piece to revolves around a mobster’s shrine to the best things Philly has to offer (and even though the series was shot in Chicago and not the City of Brotherly Love). It’s proud of its Pakistani culture, and always uses that sense of specificity to enrich the show into something audiences haven’t seen before, in spite of some familiar beats along the way. Any of the show’s humour, depth, and occasional shock value comes from just how intricately the characters have been fleshed out and the twists that arise from their interactions, Even though the tone and balance between the comedy and thriller elements starts to waver down the ten episode stretch, Deli Boys always keeps its long term goals in sharp focus, leaving things off in a place where viewers will be genuinely excited to see where things go from there. Deli Boys seems like a show that’s building to something truly grand, and even if it doesn’t stay the same laugh packed comedy it is at the outset (and given some of the tonal shifts and developments, I don’t think it will), I am fully invested in seeing where Saaed and company are going with this.
All ten episodes of Deli Boys are streaming on Disney+ in Canada and Hulu in the U.S. starting Thursday, March 6, 2025.
