While comedy might be one of the toughest genres to get right on TV, the Hulu series Deli Boys, which first released on March 6, 2025, had the right amount of humor, action, and family drama to make it a sleeper hit. The series, which has been coined as one of the best new shows of 2025, won over fans with Season 1, and is getting ready to return with a bang next month.
On May 28, 2026, the second season of Deli Boys will be hitting the platform. And while Season 1’s 96% on Rotten Tomatoes might be a high bar to live up to, the series has some ambitious plans for the second installment that already has viewers at the edge of their seats.
What Is ‘Deli Boys’ About?
Deli Boys follows brothers Mir (AsifAli) and Raj (SaagarShaikh), who have taken the “nepo baby” lifestyle a bit too far and have been sailing through life under the veil of their wildly successful father, Baba (Iqbal Theba). Season 1, however, kicks off when Baba unexpectedly dies in a golfing accident, turning their sons’ world upside down. And, as it turns out, Baba didn’t exactly earn his fortune as a deli kingpin, and was a full-fledged drug lord in Philadelphia instead. Having no basic business knowledge, zero street smarts, and the softest survival instincts, Mir and Raj are suddenly thrust into the deep end of an empire they never asked for. As Raj retreats into delusion and younger brother Mir leans on his inherently anxious nature, their only hope is the no-nonsense, sharp-tongued, and occasionally terrifying, Lucky Auntie (Poorna Jagannathan), who has a soft spot for the kids, as well as ruthless instincts the boys could (and should) learn from.
Throughout the first season, Mir and Raj fumble their way through their unwanted inheritance, leading to some major mishaps and mistakes along the way. Among them is them tracking down a half-dead naked man in the streets, botching an attempt to unload cocaine, and trying to temper the sentiments of the FBI, Peruvian gangs, and “Paki Blinders.” From the jump, it’s clear that the two are not made for this and their frazzled interactions and naive assumptions prove it, but through their love for their father, and their attempt to honor his legacy, the Dar brothers try their very best to keep the family business afloat.
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
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.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
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.
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.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘Deli Boys’ Is Getting Ready for an Ambitious Season 2
With a little over a month until Season 2 of Deli Boys, the series is promising an exciting second installment. In addition to the impressive returning cast, Season 2 will have a few new faces, per TV Insider.Those include Fred Armisen as a powerful Philadelphia casino magnate, Kumail Nanjiani as Raj’s lawyer, Andrew Rannells as Andrew Chadwater, a politician who is campaigning for mayor, and guest appearances from Lilly Singh, Robin Thede, and Tan France, who will be returning as Zubair, the British Pakistani gangster first seen in Season 1. Check out the Season 2 synopsis below.
“Turns out inheriting a criminal empire was the easy part… and more money really does mean more problems. This season on Deli Boys, the Dars are drowning in dirty cash and Philly’s sketchiest crooks are circling. Enter Max Sugar (Armisen): casino king, money launderer, and Lucky’s (Jagannathan) new crush who turns laundering into a chaotic situationship. Raj (Shaikh) plots revenge on Ahmad, Mir (Ali) tries to expand DarCo without blowing it up, and Philly D.A. Andrew Chadwater (Rannells) hopes one big bust will make him mayor.”
Asif Ali opens up about Deli Boys, his stand-up career, immigrant parents, dream co-stars, and how to survive a truly unhinged production set.
With all that said, with Season 2 of Deli Boys right around the corner, there’s no better time than now to catch up. After all, not only does the series have some promising plot points for Season 2, but the series is a treat to comedy lovers. As Tania Hussain wrote in her Collider review for the series, Deli Boys is an “unrelenting stream of laughs.” And isn’t that exactly what viewers are looking for when they’re searching for comedies?
