Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Jen Maravegias | TV | March 17, 2025
Although there are a couple of crime dramas produced in recent years about Black American families, you need both hands (and probably a foot) to count the number of American crime dramas that focus on powerful, white families. The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Ozark, Animal Kingdom, and Mayor of Kingstown, to name a few.
It seems like there’s only space to view white people as being ruthless and capable enough to achieve the American Dream through bloodshed, violence, and, occasionally, drug trafficking in pop culture. Deli Boys turns that trope on its head by proving that even model minorities, Pakistanis in this case, can be major players in the dark underbelly of the country as a means of achieving success.
Brothers Raj (Saagar Shaikh, Ms. Marvel) and Mir (Asif Ali, WandaVision) are the pampered and spoiled sons of an entrepreneurial businessman who came to America and made a fortune franchising his successful Philadelphia deli. Or so they thought. Their Baba (Glee’s Iqbal Theba) dies on the cusp of making a deal to expand his fortune even further, and the FBI unexpectedly rolls in to seize all of their assets. This forces the brothers to confront the reality of what the “family business” really is and how unprepared they are for their new role in it. The nationwide chain of delis was just a distribution system for the cocaine Baba was smuggling into the country in jars of Achar. With the patriarch gone, there’s a power vacuum in the organization that both Lucky Auntie (Poorna Jagannathan, The Night Of and Never Have I Ever) and Uncle Ahmad (Seinfeld’s Brian George) are trying to step into. As unprepared as they are for the truth of their circumstances, Raj and Mir surprise everyone by deciding they should be co-heads of the family.
In the first episode, before he dies unceremoniously on the golf course, Baba tells the brothers, “Failing upwards is for white boys.” The entire series is Raj and Mir saying, “Hold my chai,” while they prove him wrong. Brown Boys can fail upward, too, if they try hard enough. Every episode is a new comedy of errors as the brothers learn to navigate their father’s criminal enterprise. They have to transform themselves from a vacuous drug addict and over-anxious business major into men capable of killing in cold blood and foiling both the FBI and other crime bosses plotting against them. They go into it with the unearned confidence of spoiled rich boys and quickly find it’s all harder than they thought it would be. Their first attempt at body disposal ends up with the victim running off down the street in only his underwear with a paper bag on his head. And the head of the local mafia outfit, Chickie (Grounded For Life’s Kevin Corrigan) makes them sit at the kid’s table at a party because he doesn’t like their business proposal.
But they have their lethal Lucky Auntie to mentor them. While the cast is all hits, no misses, Poorna Jagannathan is a standout in Deli Boys with a truly remarkable entrance. At first, it felt like the casting director cast the Dar Brothers with Dollar Store versions of Rahul Kohli and Aziz Ansari, but Shaikh and Ali do an excellent job with the comedy and keep us interested in their exploits. They have a strong chemistry that sparks between them and the actors who play their girlfriends/spiritual guide (Alfie Fuller and Zainne Saleh.)
It’s a fun show that deserves a second season. While it feels weird to say “representation matters” in relation to shows about organized crime, it’s still true. We’re weirdly proud of our crime families in this country, maybe just a little obsessed. So, we need to see non-white actors in these roles, too. Bonus points for when they create likable, interesting characters that are more than just anti-heroes. The Deli Boys are the heroes of their own story.
