The misadventures of clueless siblings turned accidental cocaine kingpins continues in season two of crime comedy Deli Boys
A surprise hit when it debuted last year, crime caper Deli Boys told the story of the Dar brothers: Mir (Asif Ali) and Raj (Saagar Shaikh), a pair of pampered Pakistani-American siblings whose father’s accidental death in a freak golfing accident revealed his convenience store empire was a front for an illicit cocaine and money-laundering scheme. The first season concluded with Mir preparing to get married to high-strung Bushra (Zainne Saleh) — who called off the wedding when she discovered what the boys were up to. Raj then stepped up by offering to marry Nandika (Amita Rao), which would kill two birds with one stone by also sealing a drug distribution deal with her restaurateur family. Alas, when Raj and Mir’s newly inherited store was blown up by a mysterious enemy, they learned their dad’s death was no accident, but orchestrated by his duplicitous partner Ahmad (Brian George).
Now, in this new season, the Dars are faced with a unique problem: after pulling off their biggest drug deal yet, they have a mountain of cash and no idea how to go about laundering it.
That’s when ruthless casino owner Max Sugar (SNL alum Fred Armisen) enters the picture, offering a solution that the brothers will soon come to regret.
According to showrunner Michelle Nader, viewers have connected to Deli Boys because, for all the criminal intrigue, it’s ultimately a show about family. “What we try to do is tell a story about people who are faced with adversity and have to get through it as a family. I think that is a universal story . . . whether it’s crime or whatever,” she says. “But this happens to be that they’re dealing with crime because they were thrust into this unbeknownst to them . . . And I think that is what bonded them.”
Despite bumbling their way into success in the criminal underworld, the Dar brothers are still in way over their heads. “We always think of it as, like, a Mario Bros. game. They think they’re walking up, and then it’s BOOM!, hit a pitfall and they’re back at the bottom,” Nader explains. “I mean, that’s like a lot of life. You try to move forward, but there’s always gonna be this obstacle that you didn’t see coming.”
Bringing Max Sugar into the mix not only adds an extra dimension of peril for the brothers, it provides Armisen with an opportunity to show off his range. “Everybody thinks of Fred as this funny, sweet guy, but he was really interested in doing it because I think he wants to sort of dimensionalize that idea of him,” Nader says. “And he did it so chillingly that we were like, ‘Wow, OK Fred, you’re frightening us!’ Because it’s so underplayed, you know? It’s so deep. He can do anything, even though he’s smiling. That’s really, I think, what audiences are going to find so fantastic and new for Fred.”
Sugar also lets the writers explore a new side of the Dar brothers’ shrewd consigliere Lucky (Poorna Jagannathan), who sparks an instant, unexpected romance with the villain.
“We knew we wanted this character to fall for her, because it’s two psychos in love,” Nader muses. “You know, he’s gonna recognize that this woman is as crazy as he is, and be completely obsessed with her. And he is obsessed with her immediately. She is with him, too — but she plays it a little cooler, because she’s much more guarded . . . I don’t wanna give too much away, but there’s a vulnerability to Lucky that happens. For me, I wanted to see that side of her.”
Another addition to the cast in season two is Andrew Rannells, recently seen opposite Allison Janney in HBO’s Miss You, Love You. Here, he plays Philly prosecutor-turned-mayoral candidate Andrew Chadwater, who becomes an antagonist for the Dar boys due to his campaign platform of cleaning up crime in the City of Brotherly Love. “He really has such a strong belief in himself and what he’s doing that it’s very easy for him to lose his way and get distracted,” Rannells chuckles. “And he becomes so power-hungry so quickly that he completely goes off the rails.”
Playing a politician who shows one side to the public and a very different one in private was an opportunity the actor savoured. “Well, what was fun about it is to have to play the part of a good politician and a ‘good guy’ — and then being allowed to snap at people for making minor infractions. It was really fun just to have no regard for people’s feelings . . . And weirdly, those scenes being so mean to people on set, it creates this fun, very lively atmosphere.”
“I even fired a couple actors that weren’t scripted to be fired!” he quips.
Speaking as a viewer, Rannells notes he often finds himself drawn to stories like Deli Boys about “normal people pushed to extremes [who] then end up doing really violent or criminal things. Like, Ozark I loved. Bloodline I thought was also really a great example of that. Good people falling into a bad situation, trying to get out of it, but then also realizing, ‘Oh, maybe there’s some benefit to us kind of dabbling in these areas.’ But the way that this show is written, and the thing that I think makes it successful and so much fun to watch, is that at the centre of it is this family story. There is a lot of heart, and they do love each other, and they do want to help each other and stick together . . . It’s just, they’re not always very good at it. And they’re not great criminals either, by the way! Like, they do end up getting away with a lot of things, but they’re not the smoothest. So, taking it to that extreme does open the door to a lot of ridiculous situations.”
Deli Boys streams on Disney+