Published May 25, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT
Tania Hussain is an Executive Editor at Collider responsible for creative, editorial, and managerial duties. In addition to leading content ideation and development, she works to generate innovative and compelling ideas for feature articles and reviews with her editorial team across Features, Resources, Lists, and News. She has helped cover and ideate content for major events for Collider, including the Toronto International Film Festival. Tania has also conducted more than 100 interviews since her start in the business almost 16 years ago. Some favorites include Joel McHale, Charlie Cox, John Krasinski, Jennifer Garner, Tina Fey, Bob Odenkirk, Sophia Bush, Andy Richter, Jordan Schlansky, Jamie Dornan, Yeardley Smith, Arielle Vandenberg, and a reasonable toss-up between Cookie Monster and Kermit the Frog.
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In the first few moments of Hulu’s highly anticipated Season 2 return of Deli Boys, the Dar brothers — led by Saagar Shaikh’s Raj and Asif Ali’s Mir — continue their absurd criminal education in one of the most fitting places ever: the family-owned and operated Pakistani bodega, ABC Deli. As they find themselves in the center of armed robbers wearing Benjamin Franklin (or, as they believe, “White Madea”) masks, Poorna Jagannathan’s Lucky Auntie starts yelling for the boys to hide their dirty cash, which is far from chump change. The Dar family has reached a level of “Porsche money in the laddus” (sphere-shaped desserts made of flour or lentils) stage of organized crime, which is absurdly laugh-out-loud and a testament to their shoddy organization. But while it’s a thrilling and funny opening, it also sets Season 2’s terms right away. These nepo babies may have inherited an empire with Lucky, but nobody said they knew how to run one.
It’s in those layers of the sophomore entry’s premiere, “Wealthy Boys,” that the season finds its rhythm. After teeing up some major one-disaster-after-another vibes last year, Season 2 lets the Dars swing wildly and hope something lands on the green. But for all its ambitions, the six-episode season is dramatically shorter than this world deserves, and at times, that compression leaves you wanting more room for these characters to expand. But the trade-off remains a tight, sharply paced theatrical binge that keeps its best instincts intact, with sharp jokes, excellent performances, and a very specific cultural heartbeat under all the criminal shenanigans.
‘Deli Boys’ Season 2 Finds the Dars Drowning in Dirty Money
While crime movies and TV shows often highlight the glamorous part of money laundering, Deli Boys play to the opposite with Mir, Raj, and Lucky now dealing with too much dirty money and no place to clean it. In just one year, DarCo has now become the top coke distributor in Philly, which sounds powerful until every sketchy criminal in the city starts to jack up their product. To keep the empire moving, the Dars turn to the ruthless and unpredictable Max Sugar (Fred Armisen), a casino mogul and money launderer whose connection with Lucky quickly becomes as complicated as the business itself.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?
Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn't work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
FIND YOUR PARTNER →
01
You're dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
ASomeone who already has three contingency plans running and is calmly working through all of them. BSomeone who reads the terrain instinctively and knows exactly how to use it against the enemy. CSomeone who keeps their nerve and their sense of humour when everything is falling apart. DSomeone who knows the history of wherever we are and what we're walking into. ESomeone with the right contact, the right cover identity, and the right exit already arranged.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
AOn foot through terrain no one else would attempt — I move where vehicles can't follow. BOn a motorcycle, a cargo plane, or anything else that gets me there before I think too hard about it. CIn something that belongs to someone else — borrowed, stolen, or improvised under fire. DFirst class, with a cover identity and a gadget that does something I won't explain until it's needed. EBy whatever means are available — I've driven, flown, and once arrived by camel. The destination matters, not the method.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
You're pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
ADisappears into the environment, flanks them silently, and ends it before I've reloaded. BCracks a one-liner, grabs a fire extinguisher or a chair, and improvises something that somehow works. CProduces a gadget specifically designed for this exact scenario and uses it with infuriating precision. DPulls out a whip, a pistol, and an archaeological insight that somehow gets us out alive. ENeutralises the threat with maximum efficiency and minimum words — they were already three moves ahead.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
AA bar with terrible lighting, cold beer, and absolutely no questions about feelings. BThe finest restaurant in the city, a bottle of something expensive, and a conversation that is equal parts brilliant and exhausting. CA local dig site, a museum after hours, or a long story about why that particular artefact matters to human civilisation. DPizza. Bad TV. Falling asleep halfway through a movie neither of you were watching anyway. EA debrief that turns into three hours of contingency planning that somehow becomes the most fun you've had all week.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
APrecise and minimal — tell me what I need to know and nothing else. Every word has a cost. BDeadpan and dry — keeping it light keeps me sharp, even when everything is on fire. CEnthusiastic and slightly chaotic — but always with useful information buried somewhere in the noise. DCalm and controlled through an earpiece, with a plan that covers every variable I haven't thought of yet. EBarely at all — silence is a language and they speak it fluently.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
AInfiltrate their inner circle, learn everything, and dismantle them from inside out before they know we're there. BStudy the historical pattern — every villain of this type has a weakness written somewhere in the past. CGet them talking. The more they monologue, the more time I have to figure out how to beat them. DGo through them. Directly. With as much force as the terrain allows. EFind the one thing they haven't accounted for — there's always one thing — and make sure we're holding it.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
Things go badly wrong and you're captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
ACome in alone, quietly, and get me out before anyone knows they were there. BHave already been working on the extraction since the moment I disappeared — the plan is already running. CCome in loud, come in fast, and worry about the collateral damage later — I'd do the same for them. DUse every resource, every contact, and bend every rule until I'm out — they don't leave people behind. ECharm their way in somehow, bluff through the hard part, and still manage to look good doing it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn't replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn't know you had.
ATechnology that shouldn't exist yet and the training to use it under any conditions. BSurvival instinct so refined it borders on supernatural — and the scars to prove it's been tested. CKnowledge of history, language, and culture that makes them invaluable in places where force is useless. DThe ability to walk into any room in the world and immediately become the most trusted person in it. EStubbornness that refuses to accept a situation is hopeless — and the improvisational skill to back it up.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
AA partner who never fully switches off — always watching exits, always calculating threats, even at dinner. BA partner who gets the job done brilliantly but has the emotional availability of a locked filing cabinet. CA partner who makes everything ten times more complicated than it needs to be — but who always comes through. DA partner who gets personally attached to every relic, ruin, and artefact we encounter, which slows everything down. EA partner who was not built for this and knows it — but shows up anyway, every time, without being asked.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
It's the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
AOne line. Absolutely dry. Delivered like the world isn't ending. Then we move. BNothing said at all — just a look that means we both already know what has to happen. CA plan I don't fully understand that somehow accounts for everything, delivered in thirty seconds flat. DA piece of historical context that reframes the entire situation and tells us exactly what to do next. ESomeone who steps forward instead of back — because that's who they've always been.
REVEAL MY PARTNER →
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn't talk much, doesn't need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you've finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You'll never need to ask if he has your back. You'll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it'll take you a moment to remember what's actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You'll never be bored. You'll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn't matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you'll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren't so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you've finished reading the briefing, and the plan he's settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn't exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
Naturally, the Abdullah Saeed-created show, executive-produced by Jenni Konner and Michelle Nader, piles on the headaches with a ton of charm, making every episode absolutely hilarious from start to finish. After what happened to their baba (father) last season, Raj is consumed by revenge against Ahmad Uncle (Brian George), Mir becomes obsessed with pushing DarCo into more respectable territory through a golf course deal, and Lucky is carefully managing the push-and-pull between the boys and her growing dynamic with Max. Meanwhile, the very matter-of-fact and super anal-retentive, Philly D.A. Andrew Chadwater (Andrew Rannells) sees the Dars as his ticket to winning the mayoral election, turning their coke business into something much bigger than the Dar family’s growing pains.
What keeps this shorter season so engaging is also how personal all of this feels as the boys continue to mistake impulse for strategy — a rookie move for two boys just trying to figure out their place in this world. But between Max being basically another partner in the DarCo trade and Chadwater turning the family’s drug business into his own campaign target, Season 2 keeps finding new ways to make success for Mir, Raj, and Lucky feel like its own punishment across its near bite-sized 30-minute episodes.
‘Deli Boys’ Blends Its Stellar Cast With a Dangerous New Energy
One of the best things about Deli Boys Season 2 is how nobody ever plays their role too broadly, even when the situations themselves become absurd. Jagannathan, Ali, and Shaikh make the show’s comedy hit so hard again this year, which is exactly why so many scenes still feel emotionally real beneath the craziness. But Jagannathan remains Deli Boys’ biggest weapon — and a legit queen at every moment, balancing different tones at once. What she does this season is absolutely striking, especially as she never forces the comedy too. Instead, Lucky’s reactions do the work, whether it’s a glare, a deadpan pause, or the sheer exhaustion in her voice whenever Mir and Raj start spiraling into more bad ideas.
Meanwhile, Ali and Shaikh continue to carry the emotional center of the series with a lot of heart and laughs. Ali gives his character Mir an anxious ambition that feels like one bad decision away from collapse, while Shaikh’s Raj leans harder on his emotional volatility and wounded pride after last season’s events involving Ahmad Uncle. In what is also pure joy to watch this season, the two still feel completely believable as brothers and give the show a fun, charming buddy crime comedy vibe.
Related
Joining the cast this year is also Saturday Night Live legend, Armisen, who makes Max Sugar feel like he was always supposed to exist in this world. His performance is also weirdly unsettling in the best way, bordering on calm, soft-spoken, and hilarious without ever chasing the joke too hard. He gives Max this unpredictable quality where every scene feels slightly dangerous, especially opposite Jagannathan, whose chemistry with him becomes one of the season’s greatest surprises.
Meanwhile, the supporting cast gets some fun-filled moments to shine, like Rannells, who is just so funny as Chadwater with a painfully self-serious energy that makes every interaction feel a little awkward in the funniest way. The nuances he brings to his role are enjoyably humorous, especially as he has a weird fixation on milk. But one of the biggest standouts for the season is also Kumail Nanjiani, who arrives midway through the season and immediately threatens to steal entire scenes through pure charisma alone and a romantic Bollywood glow. However, as good as he is, it’s a shame he’s only featured in one central episode and for a few seconds a bit later, which feels like a disservice to the writing attempting to build bigger arcs for this world.
‘Deli Boys’ Biggest Problem Is That There’s Not Enough of It
Image via HuluFor all the things Deli Boys does right, the real weakness is that the show is only six episodes long this year compared to its 10-episode order last season. For a show that is prestigious in its realm of top-tier comedy, the shorter season means certain supporting characters and storylines don’t get the room they deserve, and it’s frustrating because the issue isn’t rooted in writing, but rather studio decisions that forcibly shrink a show that clearly has more texture and bite.
As noted earlier, Nanjiani’s role as Danyal is probably the clearest example of that frustration. He arrives midway through the season, instantly stealing scenes through his charisma and weird little line deliveries, only for the show to pull him away as quickly as it introduces him. This compression is also felt with Tan France’s return as Zubair, the South London gang leader, hunting the Dars, as well as Raj’s wife Nandika, played by Amita Rao, who manages his newfound fame as this Luigi Mangione-type figure. But for all the potential these characters build into the series through solid writing, even Lilly Singh as Aisha, Ali’s (Shahjehan Khan) wife, who has a hilarious fascination with Raj, is a loss for what we don’t get to see, as the path that arc was heading down would have brought about more laughs.
Related
'Deli Boys' Ending Explained: Who Killed Baba Dar?
A final twist sets up Season 2 of this Hulu comedy series.
That said, what Deli Boys accomplishes in those six episodes is still wildly impressive, with every scene delivering laughs and excitement. The writing remains incredibly sharp at balancing chaos with emotional grounding, especially as the season juggles the Dars’ growing empire and their constant inability to make a normal decision. While the show keeps all those moving pieces from collapsing into noise, it’s a joy to see how every episode escalates naturally and packs a punch for zany, often slapstick comedy.
Moreover, Deli Boys manages to get smarter about how Philly is used, too. The city feels grimier and more lived-in this time around, especially as the Dars move between their drug empire’s points of interest. If you watch closely enough as well, an underlying uncertainty and element of surprise gives the comedy a sharper edge, especially getting into the Season 2 finale’s cliffhanger. But what continues to really separate the show from other crime comedies is its specificity. Urdu still flies naturally through conversations as the culturally Pakistani details between food, clothing, family guilt, and insults remain woven directly into the DNA of the show instead of sitting on top of it like a cake topper.
Even with its tighter runtime and a few character arcs that deserved more, Deli Boys Season 2 remains one of the funniest and most distinctive shows to come out of streaming. The cast is stellar, the writing stays sharp, and the season’s electrifying circus keeps getting better the messier things become. By the time the finale rolls around, it’s clear Deli Boys still has plenty left to explore for Season 3 — and I would gladly spend another weekend watching the Dars make terrible decisions trying to survive it.
Deli Boys Season 2 premieres May 28 on Hulu.
Release Date March 6, 2025
Network Hulu
Writers Abdullah Saeed, Michelle Nader, Mehar Sethi, Ekaterina Vladimirova, Sudi Green
Pros & Cons
- The writing remains fast, specific, and hilarious, folding Philly crime chaos into Pakistani-American family texture.
- The cast's chemistry is ridiculously strong, making every bad decision feel funnier, messier, and oddly heartfelt.
- Poorna Jagannathan is stellar, turning Lucky into the season's sharpest, funniest, and most emotionally layered force.
- Six episodes is too short for a comedy this layered, leaving several supporting characters underused.
- Kumail Nanjiani is so good that his limited screentime feels especially frustrating by the end.
English (US) ·