'Deli Boys' season 2 adds casino scheme and star-studded guest cast

Hulu's Pakistani-American crime comedy "Deli Boys" launches its second season Wednesday with a new casino money-laundering plot and a wave of celebrity guest stars — a rare streaming series centered on South Asian immigrant family life that is drawing attention from diaspora communities across Southern California, including Orange County's growing Pakistani and Indian American enclave in Irvine.

South Asian leads rarely anchor American crime comedies on major platforms, and the show's themes of immigrant family loyalty and criminal survival echo experiences familiar to communities across Orange County — particularly Irvine, home to one of Southern California's largest concentrations of South Asian residents. Season 2 is streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.

Season 2 picks up with brothers Mir Dar (Asif Ali) and Raj Dar (Saagar Shaikh) searching for a new outlet to clean their criminal proceeds. The answer arrives in the form of Max Sugar, a casino owner played by guest star Fred Armisen, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.

"This crime family needs a place to sort of... launder their money. And I happen to have, this character Max Sugar, has a casino in town. It's the perfect place for... crime worlds to come together," Armisen said.

Ali described the new season as a larger, wilder version of its predecessor. "I would say it's more of everything. It's funnier, it's crazier," he said. Shaikh offered a broader picture of the season's structure: "Each character is on their own journey. And they start together, and then they separate throughout the season, and then they end together."

Joining as new guest stars are Kumail Nanjiani, Lilly Singh and Robin Thede. Andrew Rannells plays DA Andrew Chadwater, a prosecutor who eyes the Dar brothers case as a springboard to a mayoral run. Tan France reprises Zubair with a dramatic character reset. "For anyone who saw season one, I played a very violent gangster, which was a dream. This season you will see Zubair in a very different light. He has found his version of God, he's a lot more Zen," France said, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.

The cast also floated the prospect of crossover episodes with other Philadelphia-set series on Disney properties — specifically "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "Abbott Elementary." "We would love nothing more than to close the loop of the Philly shows," Ali said.

"Deli Boys" Season 2 is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. For the Pakistani and Indian American communities settled across Orange County's Irvine corridor, the series represents one of the few major-platform portraits of the South Asian immigrant experience in American pop culture.