NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding: Deli Boys: Pakistani-American brothers learn a secret about their Dad. With lots of gay characters and some bonus Pakistani d *cks

Mar 8, 2025

Deli Boys: Pakistani-American brothers learn a secret about their Dad. With lots of gay characters and some bonus Pakistani d *cks

**Link to the bonus Pakistani d *cks**

Deli Boys (2025), a new comedy on Hulu, features two Pakistani-American brothers, studious, hardworking Mir (Asif Ali, left) and irresponsible cokehead Raj (Saagar Shaikh), who find out a secret about their father's business activities after his death.

I doubt that a tv series written by and starring Pakistani-American guys will have any gay characters, but there's bound to be some beefcake.

Scene 1: I was right. The brothers chase a guy in his underwear, with a bag over his head, and a bulge in his shorts, out of the deli.

Three days earlier: Baba Dar records a commercial for his investors. He came to American in 1979 with three dollars in his pocket; he worked at a deli, and lived above the store with nine other guys, with six shirts between us (we see a photo; four of the guys are indeed shirtless). Today DarCo owns 40 delis around the Philadelphia area, plus Caca brand Achar (a Pakistani relish). Next he wants to buy some golf courses.

Scene 2: Cokehead Raj in bed with the Shaman Prairie (yes, that's her name) and a clump of around ten people, mostly women but two other guys. I'm going to guess that he is straight but curved around the edges.

They get up and smoke hashish, and then she applies leaches to his back, a sort of New Age thing.

Meanwhile, Drexel Grad Mir tells his father that he learned a lot about business from him, even more than at Drexel University (which he is very proud of), so he's ready for the top spot in the organization. The Girlfriend comes in and tells him that he's ready to give the speech to his father.

Next he works out, straining with a triceps pushdown.

Trainer: "I haven't even put the pin in yet." Dude is weak, har har.

The Trainer is played by Calvin Thomas (not the queer theorist, the model).

Scene 3: The guys head to the golf course. They are arguing over who deserves to become president of DarCo when Dad Baba retires. He shows up to play golf.

He is upbraiding them for being immature when a golf ball hits him in the head! He drops dead. His Caddy, Matthew, screams

Scene 4: As the brothers put a sheet over their dead Dad, Lucky Auntie bursts in. She was Dad's business partner for thirty years.

They ask, "Are you going to take care of us now?" An odd question for grown men in their 30s, but she agrees.

On to the funeral. The brothers can't do the Muslim prayers right, embarrassing everyone.

The Caddy ends with "Amen!", har har, and bursts into tears. Was he, like, Dad's boyfriend?

At the reception afterwards, Ahmad Uncle (Brian George) and Lucky Auntie spar with each other. Each thinks that the other is out to undermine them and seize control of the company.

I recall Brian George as Babu on Seinfeld, the one with the gigantic waggling finger, but he has 325 acting credits listed on the IMDB.

Scene 5: While each brother is petitioning to the DarCo board about why each should be named CEO, the feds raid and start making arrests. They were investigating Dad for fraud, inside trading, tax evasion, and so on, but he had powerful friends. Now that he is dead, they are able to act. Lucky Auntie is led off in handcuffs.

More after the break

Matthew (Jake Prizant) is not just a caddy; he is standing there in a suit, looking depressed, refusing to give up Baba's stuff. I think they were boyfriends.

Jake Prizant, who is gay in real life, is a Chicago-area comedian known for his balloon art Tiktoks. He does improv every Friday at the Annoyance Theater with his comedy troupe, Missed Call.

Scene 6: The feds seized all of the brothers' stuff, too, including all of the furniture in their apartments (fortunately they didn't notice the secret "chilling room" where Cokehead Raj does New Age stuff and does drugs).

Raj's commune has scattered, although the Shaman Prairie is still around, and Mir's girlfriend gives him an ultimatum: fix this, or she's out.

The brothers decide that they can start over with the only property not listed in DarCo's assets: the "piece of shit" ABC Deli where Dad began, back in 1979.

Scene 7: Inside, they tell the workers that they are Baba's sons, reading to take over.

"Baba's dead?" The workers start grabbing whatever they can and running away. A worker named Mirzad exclaims "This is not good! Ahmad Uncle is going to kill me." Apparently the brothers weren't supposed to know about this deli.

Suddnely Lucky Auntie bursts in and shoots him, splattering blood all over the brothers. She gives them some money and tells them to get out of town, and don't leave a paper trail. But they want to know what's going on.

Scene 8: She takes the brothers to the basement and shows them a video that Dad made, telling them that he has built up a business for them. What business? Distributing cocaine in containers of the Achar (Pakistani relish). The ABC Deli is just a front. And now that they know, they will be working for Lucky Auntie.

Their first job is to dispose of Mirzad's body. But when they start, he jumps up and runs away! The end.

Beefcake: Several shirtless guys, some bulges. Gemstones star Tim Baltz appears later as an FBI Agent.

Heterosexism: Both of the brothers have steady girlfriends.

Gay Characters: I think Cokehead Raj is bi, and Dad apparently had a side piece. And in Episode 2, the thugs are torn between voting for Lucky Auntie or Ahmad Uncle as head of the drug business.

Ahmad: Is this because I'm gay?

Thug: #1: Of course not! We love Charlie. He makes great...[a Pakistani dish]

Thug #2: He's your boyfriend? I thought he was your dad. He's like 90!

Ahmad: So? I'm the twink

My Grade: I liked that it was an old-fashioned sitcom, with none of the gravitas that one sees in what passes for comedy nowadays. The references to Pakistani culture were interesting, and it was nice to see a major gay character. I would prefer more than an offhand reference every second episode, but just having him in a show about Pakistani-American Muslim drug dealers is rather a triumph. B.

Bonus: The ten guys with six shirts. Plus, this review was a little beefcake light, so I included some n*de South Asian guys on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.