Deli Boys, Episode 2.1: The guys are back, with more wacky drug deals, Andrew Rannells as a squeaky-clean gay DA, and Pakistani d*cks

  

Link to the n*de dudes

The second season of Deli Boys just dropped on Hulu.  I reviewed an episode of the first season, and gave it a B: not enough beefcake, but some gay characters, including Brian George, whom men of a certain age remember as Babu on Seinfeld, as the season's Big Bad.

The Premise: After their father is murdered, Pakistani-American brothers, the hardworking Mir (Asif Ali) and the screw-up Raj (Saagar Shaikh), inherit his deli and DarCo, a company that produces and sells achar (a pickle relish).   Soon they discover that they are actually transporting cocaine to drug dealers in the West Philly market.   Two of Dad's consiglieres, Aunt Lucky and Ahmad (Brian George), show them the ropes of their new business -- until Ahmad, betrays them in a ploy to gain control.  Oh, and he's the one who murdered their Dad.

Scene 1:  DarCo is now the Number #1 cocaine distributor in Philly, grossing $2 million per quarter, but with fame comes notoriety: Every criminal is trying to "jack their sh*t"  So the guys and Aunt Lucky go to Max Sugar's casino to ask for his help in laundering their drug money.

Max (Fred Armisen) resists the idea... whoops, he catches someone cheating with weighted dice, so he goes down to the floor and forces the guy to eat them.  Dude is dangerous!

Back to business: he is extremely attracted to Aunt Lucky, and agrees to discuss the matter further, over dinner tonight.

Left: Not Fred Armisen.

Scene 2: DA Andrew Chadwater (gay actor Andrew Rannells) is running for mayor on a platform of cracking down on "dealers, sickos, and crooks," with the campaign slogan "Say 'heck, no' to drugs."  Sounds like Nancy Regan's "Just Say No" campaign in the 1980s. 

At headquarters, he gets the intel on the latest fad, where you mix cocaine with ices.  His assistant points out that his ex-husband was a cocaine addict, so he has a personal stake in the issue.

"We're not talking about Craig" Chadwater exclaims.  "Did he call?"

"No."

More after the break

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

Who the Heck is Kumail Nanjiani, and Is He Gay?

"Kumail Nanjiana is now ripped as hell, and he is refreshingly honest about it!" my twitter feed exclaims.

Three questions:
1. Who the heck is Kumail Nanjiani?
2. Why is having a nice physique such a big deal?
3. Is he gay, posing with his boyfriend?

1. Who the heck is Kumail Nanjiani?

The twitter link goes to Comicsands, which I can't stand because there are two lines of text per page, hidden amid endless popups and slow-loading videos that scroll down with you.  So I checked wikipedia, just in case this obscure bodybuilder had his own page.

One of the 100 most influential people in the world, according to Time magazine!  Why have I never heard of him?

He was born in  Pakistan in 1978, but didn't show up on screen until a Saturday Night Live episode in 2008.  He had a recurring role on the buddy-lawyer series Franklin and Bash (2011-2014), and after that a lot of guest spots and voice roles: Prismo on Adventure Time, Skip Marouch on Bob's Burgers.

Nothing particularly influential so far.

Kumail's only significant role seems to be in The Big Sick (2017), which he also wrote with his then-wife Emily Gordon.  It's a slightly fictionalized memoir about their romance. dealing with cultural differences and Emily's life-threatening illness.  In the end, she recovers, and they break up.

It sounds awful.  Who wants to watch a movie about a life-threatening illness?  But, depressing or not, it was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay, and pushed Kumail up into the ranks of the 100 most influential people in the world.

I'm pretty sure I could name 100 actors more influential than the star of one depressing movie, but ok, next question.

2. Why is having a nice physique such a big deal?

Apparently he was rather chunky just a few years ago.  Hitting the gym for the first time when you're over 40 is rather daunting, and Kumail deserves praise for sticking with it long enough to see results.













3. Is he gay, and posing with his boyfriend?

An article in Entertainment Weekly called Emily Gordon Kumail's "former wife," implying that they are divorced or she has died.  But Wikipedia just says that they've been married since 2007.  Which to believe?

He appeared in an episode of the Game of Thrones parody Gay of Thrones, but he doesn't play a gay character: one of the Queer Eye guys gives him a haircut.  That's entertaiment?

Also, Kumail and Emily are currently producing Little America, about the lives of immigrants.  Episode #8 features Rafiq (Haaz Sleiman), a gay refugee from Syria.

I'm going to go with "straight."

A straight guy who starred in a depressing movie and has a nice physique.  Big deal.

By the way, the other guy in the photo is Barry Keoghan, Kumail's costar in the upcoming superhero movie The Eternals.  

This is obviously a photo from a gay romance.  I wonder if he's gay in real life.

Google, here I come.

Asim Butt: Gay Pakistani Artist

Asim Butt (1978-2010) was a Pakistani artist who studied in Karachi and San Francisco.  He was interested in graffiti and interactionist pieces,.

Art that protested unfair social conditions, police brutality, and homophobic state policy, set up in public places where it would be soon removed by the authorities.

Gay in real life, he often portrayed naturalistic men in intimate poses, the intimacy substituting for beefcake's emphasis on muscle.

He was a member of the Stuckist Art Movement, which is anti-anti-art, dedicated to returning to representation rather than abstraction.