Deadpool Is Ajax's Unrequited Love Story

A love story

On the surface, Deadpool is the story of Wade Wilson: a mercenary who gets cancer, leaves his girlfriend Vanessa, survives a brutal experiment that makes him immortal, and fights to get her back. As a plot, it is honestly flimsy. Why doesn't Wade just go home to Vanessa once he's cured? Why does the villain keep fighting a man who literally cannot die?

Because that isn't the real story. The real story is Ajax's. Francis, who goes by Ajax, is a man whose nerve endings were scorched away until he feels nothing at all. He has no superpower, in fact he has a disability in that he is just missing one of his senses! And the one thing in the world that makes him feel something, anything, is Deadpool saying his name.

It starts as a spark. Strapped to a table, Wade cracks a joke and makes the unfeeling man smile in spite of himself. The dam breaks open when Deadpool learns Francis' real name and throws it in his face, and Francis, for the first time in a long time, truly feels. From there he is hooked. Four separate times he begs Deadpool the same question, "What's my name?" He punishes Wade not because he needs to but because he wants to. He grows jealous of Vanessa, kidnaps her in order to keep his spot inside Deadpool's head, and signs his ransom text to Deadpool "Love, Ajax."

And at the very end, given a clean chance to escape, he throws it away to tackle Deadpool one last time, dying with his name on his lips. Every plot hole closes the moment you see it: This is the warped, one-sided love tragedy of a man who could feel nothing, undone by the one person who made him feel everything.

The evidence

Episode transcript

Hey, welcome back to the Popcorn Isn't Real. Happy to be here. I'm Torvald and this is my brother. Hi, I'm Leif Eric. Today we're going to talk about Deadpool. I'm so excited. So I, I loved Deadpool when it came out and I was actually surprised because I didn't expect to love Deadpool when it came out. And part of the reason is because I actually liked Deadpool a lot as a character. And I thought that they couldn't do a faithful, like big screen representation of him because like he I mean he's kind of a really like almost abstract character in a lot of ways because like he breaks the fourth wall and he has like inner voices and like how are you gonna show that on the big screen without it being like tacky right exactly I mean arguably they didn't do a very faithful version of him no I think that was a good choice they did a version that was that would appeal to a mainstream audience and was still different and and interesting he was very

different and this is another thing about it that I thought I wouldn't like which is I'm I have nothing against him I'm just not a big fan of Ryan Reynolds is I don't dislike him I just I'm not really into him right so I didn't think I would enjoy him as Deadpool but dude he killed it as Deadpool he is such a good Deadpool like I gotta give credit where it's due and I gotta say Ryan reynolds boy he must love deadpool like he really put his heart into that role dude guy really fights for deadpool i mean he was fighting for that role for a long time no absolutely so a little background on this movie it came out in 2016 ryan reynolds he acted in it he was deadpool he produced it and he was attached to the project since 2004 just after he filmed blade 3 right like he was attached that project for over a decade just trying to make it happen well i mean he he kind of made it happen with wolverine origins right like he did play deadpool but i don't think he was very happy

with that no i don't think so either um apparently also in the commentary they pretty much confirmed that it was ryan specifically that they all wanted to do it and they were all trying to do it but it was specifically ryan reynolds who leaked the test footage that actually got the movie kind of green yeah i wonder if he also leaked the script because the script was leaked too i think it might have been um they didn't talk about that paul wernick yes no you got it it's rett reese and paul wernick those are the writers and the directors tim miller yeah rett reese and paul wernick are great um and i actually had read the uh the script uh when it leaked like several years before the movie was ever made and before that test footage was leaked either um that was pretty good script they changed a couple things but not a lot it was pretty much the same thing in the commentary they actually mentioned that uh i guess they made and like literally an another draft of the script like

they they rewrote it every year for a decade so there are like at least 10 different versions of that script but they admitted that none of those versions was very different like they were all very similar to each other just small changes throughout them they said there was one pg-13 version um but they of course ended up with the r-rated version uh tim miller the director he did terminator dark fate a lot wow yeah all right so talking about deadpool um hey you and outside viewer what is deadpool about leif okay well i mean deadpool is just about this guy bounty hunter who gets cancer and tries to cure it also he's in love with a lady and he leaves her but he he really loves her and anyway after trying to cure it he ends up involved in this weird experiment where he gets healing powers and then people are after him and he has to kill them because they kidnap his girlfriend pretty flimsy plot right right it's the character who really

makes it work because he's just a funny interesting character now i think it's interesting because this movie has like a really flimsy plot like you're kind of like if you think about it you're Like, what even happened in that movie? Like, why didn't Deadpool just go back to his girlfriend after he got cured? Like, what was even going on? But it's a really enjoyable movie. And I believe that the reason for this is that that is not the plot. I have a theory that there is another plot, a subplot underlying all of this that actually gives the movie a certain strength and a certain core. I have a theory that Deadpool is a love story. But it's actually, it's not a love story between Wade and Vanessa, as you might think. It's the love story between Deadpool, you know, Wade. He's a bad guy. He's a self-hating guy because he's got a good heart. And he doesn't like that he did those bad things. Like, he just wants to be punished, but he can't die because of his, you know, his mutant powers which develop in the movie.

It's a love story between him and Ajax, who is a bad man with no heart, right? Like he literally can't feel anything except for when Deadpool says his name. Then he feels something. So this is the story of Ajax and Deadpool interacting in various ways and Ajax punishing Deadpool and forcing him to say his name so they can both feel what they want to feel. You know, they both love punishment. They both want to feel something. That's how I took it. The first time I watched this movie, that's the movie I saw. okay all right so just to give you some background on why i believe this i'm gonna go more specific later but if you watch this movie again pay attention to ajax because almost every single line in this entire movie almost all of his lines are complimenting deadpool or speaking fondly of him or asking him to say his name like whenever he talks about deadpool it's affectionate ajax has

strong feelings towards Deadpool clearly and that's interesting from a character who shouldn't feel anything right okay so but is this theory that the love is one-sided or is this is this a reciprocated relationship what's the theory I think that it is pretty much one-sided in that like I take the theory to be Ajax he is in love with Deadpool and the way Deadpool makes him feel Deadpool may or may not know it he kind of plays to it but that might just be kind of his personality as Deadpool he just wants to shake things up and he might know that day that uh sorry that Ajax feels strongly about him and I think he likes pushing Ajax's buttons right like he's also getting something out of this but maybe not to the same level as Ajax right okay so but I think that's a good question we'll we'll get into that actually a little more as it goes along but I do think that deadpool he likes pushing people's buttons right there's no denying that and i think

he likes being punished yeah i mean for sure i mean that's actually one of the things that i like most about deadpool's character in the comics everything about him is just motivated by his own self-hatred and his desire to die self-loathing and they really really toned that down for the movie which yes i didn't like but i do think was a good choice because this thing was bordering on not working in the mainstream and it totally worked in the mainstream and i think had they not toned down a lot of deadpool stuff it wouldn't have caught on the way it did but i i still really missed a lot of deadpool's self-destructive and self-hating behavior but i i see where you're coming from but i can accept any changes they made to make this movie happen just because it's such a good movie i'm just really glad it exists but all right you'll notice i'm sure you'll remember the opening of this movie is really iconic it's uh it's actually really cool opening where it's a

freeze frame of deadpool attacking ajax and his goons and the camera kind of pans around this you know 3d freeze frame showing all the different pieces of it it's cool and for sure that whole sequence was in the script oh dude the attention to detail of those writers is something to behold no so throughout this scene they're playing they're blasting angel of the morning which is the you know you're my angel you're my darling okay but so they're playing that song and this is a love song but there's nothing loving in this scene right like then why would they even play that song here it's because this is the song about wade and ajax right wade and francis yeah i mean there's no love in this scene. Like, I guess you could say they're just playing it for the comedy of it. But I think it's a little more than that. I think that they're showing this relationship, right? Like, this is the culmination of that relationship. Like, Deadpool is now coming after

Ajax, which is what Ajax wants, right? Now, so I just have to say, in the script, there was a joke that I really liked that I think got cut out from the movie, where so they're having this big fight on the, the, the, the overpasses or the freeways or whatever. And at one point they are on one of the freeways and cars are stopped all around them and Deadpool and Ajax are facing off and Ajax pulls like a hostage out of a random car and puts a gun to his head and is like threatening Deadpool. Like you stay away from me. I'll shoot this person. And then Deadpool pulls a little girl out of a car and puts a gun to her head. Or you come over to me, I'll shoot something like that you know i don't remember exactly and then another part of the joke that i liked was when he pulls her out of the car he looks down at her shoes and he's like oh heelys nice she's wearing heelys anyway at least they kept that in that's yeah that's a really good

probably the good Deadpool joke yeah probably the the production company didn't really go for putting a gun to a little girl's head even if it is it could have just been somebody it didn't need to be a little girl like just them both having a hostage but Deadpool having no reason But it was a good joke because it was both funny and it establishes right at the beginning. Oh, he's not a hero, right? He's just as bad as the guy he's chasing. Also, he's crazy. And the stuff he does doesn't make any sense. Yeah. That's a good gag. I wish they'd kept that in. That's really good. All right. So one more thing to note about the song Angel of the Morning. This is my flimsiest evidence. So you're going to have to bear with me here. But one of the lines they repeat throughout that song is, Touch my cheek before you leave. right like they keep saying touch my cheek before you leave this movie ends with ajax and deadpool

punching each other in the cheek before deadpool kills ajax before he leaves i thought you were gonna say like like ajax reaches out and strokes deadpool's cheek as he's dying i was like dude i missed that part i would have been great no but they do they specifically do punch each other in the cheek like they're giving each other hooks to the face and it's definitely landing on the cheek right now but i mean there's no probably typically when you give a hook to the face it's gonna land on the cheek right yeah i told you you'd have to bear with me for that one all right all right now the very first time we see ajax deadpool's hunting him down he kills all the goons sees ajax you know they're face to face starts talking to him ajax's first words to deadpool are well hello gorgeous those are first words like first he calls him gorgeous and then he says you should thank me apparently i made you immortal i'm actually quite jealous now i think he actually

is quite jealous like i think part of ajax's you know obsession with deadpool is that he's jealous that deadpool can feel everything and live through it right like ajax feels nothing and can die right but Deadpool feels everything right that is one of the biggest problems with this movie when it's one of the best parts of the movie Ajax is just with a main conflict like the main villain of this movie doesn't have a superpower he's handicapped right he's just missing one of his senses that's it so he does mention he does say that he has heightened senses whatever that means or like i think he says heightened senses and reaction time um okay i don't know if that really plays much into the movie i think that was just kind of them trying to make him seem cool even though he's just you know i don't care like a logic people blind people have heightened senses because they're missing one of their senses right like he's missing a sense so his other ones are

heightened like that's just you know that's just how it works yeah no i actually love that about this movie i love that the bad guy who deadpool's having so much trouble with he's just he's just missing yeah he's just a handicapped man and deadpool is literally a guy who cannot die like there's no way ajax was ever going to win this conflict right now i i also have to say i don't know if it's because he can't feel anything so like he doesn't hold back his muscles but ajax does seem to have increased strength like he lifts up like an adult like a big guy he lifts him up by the neck with one hand and just holds him there for like half a minute and then later he after he spears um deadpool to the ground with rebar like a big thick thing of rebar like at least double circumference of normal rebar he just bends it right like he just grabs it and bends into a hook so he must be strong yeah he's strong we don't know if it's super strength but

he's stronger than a normal guy he's not as strong as angel dust but he is definitely stronger than the average guy yeah okay all right the movie starts up uh wade meets vanessa you know they fall in love they're having a great time but wade gets cancer and you know it's really sad and they have to deal with that and then in the end he doesn't want her to have to suffer through his cancer so he leaves her and he goes to this government there it's not actually government this private experimentational project right and they take him into a lab and they you know tie him down and basically they say yeah we're not a government project we're a private project and we're basically just gonna hurt you and uh at this point when wade first enrolls in this project i think he makes an impression on ajax and ajax might not be feeling anything yet but he definitely notices Wade. So Ajax is dropping him down. And he says, like, he says he was once

a patient there. He says, in my case, it enhanced my reflexes, also scorched my nerve endings. So I no longer feel pain. And in fact, I no longer feel anything. I think that's important. He doesn't feel anything. And I think he means emotionally as well, because he seems to be very dead to the world right see what else that could mean right so he doesn't feel and deadpool he's gagged at the moment he's begging to be on gag like he clearly wants to say something and then they finally like ajax signals angel dust to take the gag off of him and deadpool says you have something in your teeth right there right in the middle and at this point ajax smiles and even laughs a little under his breath and then catches himself and stops smiling and glares and looks away and then he checks his teeth in the mirror and deadpool laughs and says made you look and i think it's almost like at least from ajax's perspective i think it's almost like deadpool

saying made you feel something right i think ajax took this a little personal because he just told he just told deadpool i don't feel anything and then deadpool caught him smiling right yeah he can clearly feel something but then ajax does later kind of open up i felt to wade and tells him like one thing that never survives this place is a sense of humor and i think that he's not only being a little threatening and ominous but i think he actually means it right like i think he he's just he's alluding to the fact that he died inside at that place and he's kind of warning deadpool this will happen to me will happen to you and i think he both hates and loves deadpool because what happened to him doesn't happen to deadpool the opposite happens deadpool yeah he becomes immortal and also keeps a sense of humor he gets a superpower yeah whereas ajax was just tortured and handicapped so uh they start torturing deadpool um oh and this is a really

important part they're torturing deadpool is a little montage about that later ajax walks in on deadpool talking to another inmate um they're talking about the things they want to see and do before they die and Deadpool just happens to start talking about Vanessa he finally like after the whole conversation he kind of mutters he says Vanessa I want to see Vanessa and that's right when Ajax walks in and you can faintly hear him off camera he says oh you're lovely which is a weird thing to say but then he says uh I don't know about anyone else but I'm touched I encourage distractions wouldn't want you to lose hope and i think this is interesting like he's i don't know i think he heard them talking about vanessa and i think he's hurt like i think he's a little jealous he said he said all of this like off camera in like a whisper or like a well the oh you're lovely was like it wasn't really a whisper but it was far away from the mic so you could like barely

hear the rest of it hear it he's on the rest of it he actually says to the guy who deadpool was talking to oh okay it's clearly to both of them but he's talking to the other guy and at this point deadpool cuts and he's like how tough can he be with a name like francis and this is important this is a profound moment for ajax i think something breaks inside of him when he hears his name at this moment he knows he feels something and it's anger like his face suddenly changes and he glares when deadpool says his name like he's not hiding that he feels something this man who feels nothing right and then deadpool continues he's like it's his legal name he got it from ajax sorry you got it yeah ajax dish soap and then he starts spelling it he says uh francis f-r-a-n-c-i oops i snagged the dry clean tag off your lab coat and then ajax walks over to him says you are so relentlessly annoying won't you do us all a favor and shut up or i'll sew your

pretty mouth shut which once again he's being like almost affectionate to him like he's complimenting him every time he tells him how annoying he is right it's like almost like he likes it and why would someone who can't feel anything care if someone's being annoying right right all right so like i said this is a profound moment for ajax like he he breaks inside when he hears his own name like he doesn't know what to feel and he overreacts like it's at this point that he puts Deadpool straight into the vacuum treatment like the most horrible treatment they have and leaves him there for a whole weekend and this is what finally awakens the powers in Deadpool so after a whole weekend of you know getting the air sucked out of his body and also being kept alive just barely Ajax shows up and inspects Deadpool and you know he can see the Deadpool's, you know, disgusting and gross-looking now, and Ajax says, looks like someone lost his

shot at Homecoming King, which, once again, is almost like a compliment, like a backhanded compliment, like, you used to be so pretty. And then Ajax, commenting on Deadpool's face, like, this is just important for plot reasons, he says, yeah, I've seen similar side effects before, I could cure them, but where's the fun in that? And then he says, now I'm gonna shut you in there again, Wade, not because I need to, but because I want to. Once again, I think this is important. He wants to do it because he feels something when he punishes Wade, right? Like he feels something when he hurts Wade, he feels it and it makes him happy, right? And then this I feel is punctuated or underlined by the fact that as soon as he says, not because I need to, but because I want to, He leans in real close to Deadpool right before closing the chamber and says, quick question, what's my name?

And then Deadpool doesn't answer. He just glares at him. And Ajax looks genuinely disappointed. Like he waits for it. He doesn't hear anything. He looks actually disappointed and he shrugs and he turns away and says, didn't think so. Like, and he sounds kind of sad and then closes the thing. and it's almost like he's accepted like he thinks he won't get to feel it again right like he's disappointed and he's like yeah i didn't think i would feel it again right like whatever i felt the first time you said my name like i don't know i think he was really hoping for it but he didn't get it and he was like i knew it was too good to be true right okay yeah so deadpool sneaks the match from angel dust manages to set a fire and he gets out and starts fighting with ajax there's a big fight scene as the place burns down eventually ajax knocks deadpool out runs him through the rebar spikes into the ground bends the top into a hook so deadpool couldn't get off even if he was

you know conscious then he bends down to face you know dazed deadpool who's just barely even there and he whispers again to him what's my name like he really really drives himself he really wants to hear his name well so i like it's been a while since i watched this but i mean since your theory certainly isn't the common belief of most people who have watched this i don't see how you could believe anything else the i think probably what most people get out of this is that like it's like uh he was really mad the first time he said his name yeah definitely how could someone who feels nothing be mad like how can you feel anger but this is like a like a power play like uh you're like like i'm in charge now you're too it is a power play definitely and deadpool also likes it i think like on some level i think deadpool likes the punishment and ajax likes punishing him but deadpool doesn't say his name

whenever he does no he doesn't huh and i mean this time it's because he was almost unconscious and then the other time when when he was about to shut the um to shut the the vacuum capsule this is actually kind of important he didn't say his name because he had angel dust match in his mouth hidden right okay so i think he would have said ajax's name but he couldn't because he had the match in his mouth and i think that's part of why ajax is so disappointed because he thought deadpool would do it but he didn't do it and he's like i knew it you of course you won't let me feel that again okay okay so deadpool he gets out he's he's all powered up you know he's a super mutant he can't die and what's the first thing he's gonna do what's he gonna do now that he's free is he gonna go find vanessa no no no he's gonna go find francis now cutting forward deadpool found ajax fought with him ajax got away ajax is talking to angel

dust he's talking about deadpool he explains that they're gonna kill him they're gonna hack him up he says he can't heal if there's nothing left to heal and then he turns to after this whole conversation where angel dust is like can we even kill him he's immortal he's like yeah well you know if we hack him up enough he can't the conversation's over and the camera starts to pan away and then he turns back to angel and this is completely unnecessary he turns back to angel dust and he says you know it's almost funny i almost missed him i like a challenge but he's bad for business now let's go find him like it's it's a really weird wistfully like longing thing to say which was completely unnecessary like if he was just your regular run-of-the-mill villain why is he making comments like this and what was like what was the challenge the challenge is deadpool like he likes him but like what was the challenge what was challenging about deadpool nothing it's

this is his way of saying i like deadpool right like he's just calling him a challenge like i think he doesn't want to admit it to himself or angel but he does want to say it like it means so much to him like he likes deadpool because then he also he has to admit to him but he's bad for business so let's go get him right but i'm just saying like like with the challenge line they haven't really gone head to head at all yet no so there's been no challenge like i mean they fought and he got pinned to the wall compliant when he came in like sure he's being kind of snarky but other than that he's done everything they said just you're right so just to make sure you're on the same page this is after Deadpool hunted him down and pinned him to the wall right oh okay okay so they have fought at this point and also Deadpool has been killing his goons to try and find him okay right like so he that's why he's bad for business as ajax says like he's actually

disrupting their little cartel so he's saying i like a challenge in the sense i wish i could let him keep hunting me down and killing yes no that's exactly what he's saying and it's funny like he's in he's not even implying it he's saying i would let him live and keep doing this if it wasn't hurting my business like he's to say i like him like i miss him and i like him like it's it's the weirdest is the weirdest thing for him to basically like he's almost like he's he's like my friend came back i'm so happy right like that's basically what he's saying okay all right so at this point he wants to get to deadpool how's he going to get to deadpool he's going to kidnap deadpool's girlfriend so he goes to kidnap vanessa and he you know sneaks out of a of an alley and he grabs her and he says you have wade wilson to thank for this just letting her know this isn't about her it's about wade this is about deadpool right just making sure she knows that and i believe

that he's not just kidnapping her because he wants to get to deadpool he's kidnapping her because he's jealous right like he remembers what deadpool said that the last thing he wanted to do was see vanessa he's like no no no you want to say my name some more okay all right so deadpool he meets up with his bartender friend and he's he's mad he's like oh they got vanessa what are we gonna do we need all the guns and then he gets a text message and it's from francis and it says you want her come and get her the scrapyard 12 p.m love ajax and then a smiley poop emoji like once again didn't need to say love ajax at the bottom like yeah i think this is that's pretty good like first of all it says love and second of all it says his name but not his name like he he's rubbing it in he's like you know my name's not ajax say my name say it say francis right like he wants him to say francis francis but he's like love ajax poop emoji

yeah oh man that's pretty good so deadpool negasonic teenage warhead and colossus arrive at the scrapyard oh just one note and i guess sonic teenage warhead was not in the script that was leaked so she was something that was added later because they just wanted another mutant i guess anyway just around yeah i mean i think she's a she's a good character though and i think she fits into the movie i mean she doesn't do anything right like you could take her out and it would be the same movie because she wasn't in the script anyway ajax he walks out he spreads his arms wide and he shouts from the top of the ship wade wilson what's my name it's the first thing he says when deadpool gets there he just wants to hear his name and the deadpool mutters to himself he says oh i'm about to spell it out for you and then he kills all of ajax men and literally spells out francis with their bodies and then says yoo-hoo to get francis's

attention yeah at which point ajax looks down at it turns to vanessa and says does he write you notes too he's such a romantic it's like a competition between them dude like he's seriously comparing deadpool's interactions with him to deadpool's interactions with vanessa yeah that's pretty good i like these and i'm not i'm not kidding you these are all his lines like i'm not skipping his lines in between i'm telling you everything he says in the movie he had a few more lines in the lab just explaining their procedures um which i kind of glossed over and didn't quote here but uh pretty much anytime he's having conversation he's saying affectionate things about deadpool uh just a side note though that that spelling things with bodies bit is directly from the comics so that that's something deadpool does ajax clearly took it very personally but it might not have been as personal as he thought all right so deadpool he's advancing

on ajax he got to the top of the boat he's he's coming to get him ajax has vanessa locked in the vacuum chamber and this is a really weird part to me like this i i don't know how else to interpret this like there was no reason for this so Deadpool's talking to Vanessa um I forget what Deadpool says something along the lines of don't worry I'm gonna get you out of this you know horrible situation and then Ajax chimes in he's like indicating Vanessa like he's he's kind of gesturing to her and he says what better way to crawl back inside that head of yours to Deadpool like once I have no idea how to interpret that except I'm jealous so I got your girlfriend right like you're not even thinking about me anymore no exactly this has nothing this isn't like look what i got now i can kill you right like this isn't like i baited you here to kill you so i can get on with my business this is completely personal like he just wants deadpool to think

about him and then deadpool responds oh you never left like you never left that head of mine which i'm sure makes ajax real happy like do you have any other way to interpret that scene like why would he be saying what better way to crawl back inside that head of yours like that that one even threw me off because i didn't remember that line and i have no other way of interpreting it yeah no it doesn't because ajax was never the one getting into deadpool's head right no like it was always all i can say here is head right so he's jealous like that's all he's mad that deadpool came back you know to find his girlfriend he's like you should have gotten out there to be with me or you shouldn't have escaped at all you should have stayed with me i think is almost what he's thinking right all right so we're getting to the end of the movie deadpool ajax have an epic fight you know they're killing each other deadpool gets stabbed in the

head. Negasonic Teenage Warhead blows up the whole shipyard, the whole scrapyard, and the ship falls down. Ajax tackles Deadpool. And this part, once again, I thought was really interesting because at this point, Angel Dust is out. All of Ajax's goons are out. Ajax has nothing to gain here. Like, why didn't he leave like he left the first time Deadpool caught him? Like, no one even knew he survived the crash. He's surrounded by superheroes. He's got Colossus, Negasonic Teenage warhead and deadpool to fight and i don't think he could even beat one of them like he's very hurt he doesn't have any superpowers right like he has no superpowers and also he just had a boat collapse on him like he's in bad shape and also he just fought deadpool deadpool was like stabbing him all over and stuff and yet instead of leaving he tackles deadpool like he sticks around he want he wants to see this through to the end so he tackles deadpool deadpool breaks both of his arms

as they punch each other in the cheek and then you know beats them up and he's screaming to him he says now it's time for you to fix this butter face ajax says there's no cure for that deadpool says you mean you can't fix this and ajax says sounds even stupider when you say it which it is like why did he even take it seriously it was a very contrived and stupid motivation for deadpool to have yes and i'm glad that in the end they call it out like this is dumb deadpool but also it kind of fits because deadpool kind of even like in the comics he latches on to like little things so this could be one of those things that he latched on to that isn't logical but it's stuck in his head that's the one thing that i miss most from the comics though is that yeah deadpool is not dumb like he plays himself off as dumb but he's he's always has some sort of plan and yeah he's almost methodical right he's like really smart in a crazy way and all the crazy

stuff he does always ends up coming together in some genius way and unfortunately ryan reynolds deadpool i think just actually is dumb but is that unfortunate though i think it works yeah i mean it's not the same deadpool but it works it's just less of a complex character which i do think works for a mainstream audience but i just like it a little less i i understand but i'm still glad we got what we got all right so end of the movie yeah he says it sounds even stupider when you say it deadpool says like the kind of stupid who admits he's can't do the one thing i'm keeping him alive for then deadpool takes out his pistol points it at ajax and says any last words can you guess what ajax's last words are what's my name yep so ajax lifts he raises his head like he's dying like he's bleeding his arms are broken he's got gashes everywhere he raises his head so that his forehead's up against the barrel of deadpool's gun and says

what's my name those are his last words at which point deadpool says who cares and it's gonna kill him and then colossus interrupts for you know a silly little gag of four moments but and then deadpool shoots him anyway um which i i thought was a really good ending like even though it kind of messed with the pacing of it it was really funny i loved colossus's speech i love that deadpool just killed ajax anyway and also as colossus is talking deadpool looks annoyed and ajax looks super annoyed like he wants deadpool to acknowledge him some more he wants deadpool to shoot him or say his name like that's all he wants so yeah now i just want to get into a little bit of why why this matters to me um as we talked about at the very beginning the plot of this movie i think it's an amazing movie i'm not deriding it in any way but the plot is really flimsy right Like, why doesn't Wade just go back to Vanessa?

He got what he wanted, right? He doesn't have cancer anymore. So, he's a little ugly. Is he that shallow? Does he think she's that shallow? I mean, he really shouldn't if he knows her at all. I mean, this is a woman who he had sex with using a strap on. Like, he's probably not super self-conscious in front of her. I know like it's weird because they set them up as very open and not self-conscious like I mean they imply that he was keeping the ring like the the ring pop that he proposed to her with in his butt before giving it to her right like I mean they're pretty open about anything so it seems like she wouldn't mind his mottled skin right he's still the same guy but anyway the reason is that's not what the story is about it's not about vanessa and wade it's about ajax and wade vanessa in this movie is a side character who only serves to create friction and jealousy between the two main characters and their romance their unrequited romance i guess i would say because

i don't think deadpool's into it any more than getting revenge and pushing ajax's buttons i do think he gets some joy out of being tortured and out of hurting other people but i think he mostly does want to end up with vanessa well this is ajax's story this is about ajax and wade wilson i guess francis and wade wilson we can say his name one more time sorry any any thoughts this is a this is a tragic love story yeah like like romeo and juliet levels of tragedy didn't like romeo oh yeah if if juliet if if deadpool had just realized because i don't think deadpool realizes that the Ajax loves him you know and if he had realized that maybe things would be different right Deadpool went through this whole movie thinking that they had just a normal supervillain you know superhero kind of relationship when that's totally not what they had like like the tragedy here is that that Ajax was in a different movie than Deadpool was in

100% yes this is the tragedy of Ajax like no one understands him like that not I'm not saying he's a good person i'm not defending what he does because he's a horrible person as i said at the beginning he's an empty person who is bad but this is a tragedy about this horrible person never getting what he wants he just wants just wants deadpool to acknowledge him so is ajax a good marvel villain or is he the best marvel dude ajax is undeniably the best And by that I mean, is he a complex, good character, unlike most Marvel villains? Yes. No, exactly. And that's why I loved Deadpool when I saw it. Like, literally, as I watched, I was like, finally, we get, like, a complex, multifaceted villain. Like, he's not a villain. I mean, he is. But he's the main character, right? Like, this is his love story, right? Like, okay. So that leads, I mean, well, that kind of leads into what I was going to say.

So the problem with most Marvel villains is they're not very complex and they get criticized a lot for that. No, they're completely straightforward. And they're pretty much just doing evil stuff for the sake of doing evil stuff. And most of what they do makes no sense. It's just whatever is bad for the characters at that point, right? That's why we always joke that like, oh, he must have got hit in the head and he's just, just nothing he's doing makes any sense. Like, like he knows he's about to die. So like, I feel like there's only two ways you can interpret Ajax. Either this whole say my name thing is like a weird power play where he thinks Deadpool is like afraid to say his name and he feels superior, but that doesn't make any sense. No, it doesn't make any sense. Or it's what you say where he's in love with Deadpool, which makes perfect sense. So it makes complete sense. It's even backed up by his own dialogue.

But he like everything he says backs it up. But if you go with like what the most, I'm sure most people who watch this movie, you know, don't see this love story, then the only explanation is that Ajax is a terrible villain and nothing he does makes any sense whatsoever. Right. No, like if he was. He's literally just doing whatever is like just kind of bad and villainous against Deadpool at any given moment and just being kind of cool and bad while he does it. Or, or he's in love with Deadpool and then everything makes sense. he's like the best villain ever yeah it's because he's not like he is acting irrationally and it's because of his feelings toward Deadpool right like everything he does is about either getting his attention or getting revenge or getting back at the girl he's jealous of right yeah oh man what a good movie but yeah I that's uh that's how I interpreted it first time I watched it I left the

theater just in awe. I like, I literally, I was like, I can't believe they wrote a villain like that. Like that was the best Marvel villain I've ever seen. I'm on the, from when I first watched it, I was on the other end, the more, you know, probably what we would call mainstream part of the spectrum where I just watched it and I got out and I was like, that was a good movie. It was really funny. I liked Deadpool. And then thinking about it, I was like, man, the Ajax sure was stupid wasn't he like first of all he doesn't even have a power and his plan made no sense right so i guess it comes down to like you can either you choose to believe that he's the he's just a dumb villain or after hearing this theory you can choose to believe that this was a tragic love story and i think that certainly improves the movie so i think that's a good thing to choose to believe i completely agree like i i think he is bar none the greatest marvel villain end of story

it's too bad i'm not sure if maybe the writers knew i don't know if the director they couldn't have like some of the lines they gave him like why was he talking about crawling back into deadpool's head by kidnapping his girlfriend like why why was that even the subject of conversation right then oh that poor poor love struck man with no superpowers who got beat up and killed by a bunch of superheroes yeah poor ajax he he never stood a chance even with angel dust protecting him like she had legitimate superpowers but like i mean come on what's she gonna do against colossus and negasonic team forehead and deadpool and apparently i mean we don't need to talk about the sequel but apparently colossus is tough enough that he can just take out the juggernaut by punching him which is just so i have mixed feelings on the sequel mostly a little negative but i don't hate it but it's got funny jokes but it's just the jokes but i mean like

that said i love rhett reese and paul wernick yeah they're good they write great jokes they write fun they write good like their characters are really first movies like they they deadpool is great. Zombieland is great. Their second movies, Deadpool 2 and Zombieland 2, are not bad. They're just mostly good jokes. And if you look at everything else aside from the jokes, it doesn't make sense. And it's really not that great. Right. So this does kind of make me wonder if maybe they didn't know about Ajax and they were just kind of writing a generic villain who was making stupid choices you know i mean in that case how could they have written some of his dialogue like yeah i mean why why does he walk over to deadpool and say like tells him how jealous he is he calls him gorgeous he says he wants to sew that pretty mouth shut like why does he tell angel dust that he misses him and he likes the challenge

yeah i mean i wish i remembered i if from the script if what ajax's lines were but i just don't remember the script that well but yeah maybe it was the actor it's true because maybe that's what i was gonna say it could be that the actor had this whole story for himself he was like oh i'm in love with deadpool and then like you know he just he just went with that and every single scene he was in he played like i am in love with Deadpool and like the writers and the director didn't know yeah that could be I don't know I wish we could get uh get the actor on the show let's see what's his name Ajax he's Ed Screen he's he's so cool he's he's a good actor he was in uh he was in Alita Battle Angel so one more interesting thing to note you had mentioned that at the beginning of the movie when Ajax first arrives, his opening line to Deadpool is, hello gorgeous. Now this is actually a very famous movie quote. It was even featured in AFI's 100 Years 100 Movie Quotes in 2005.

It's from the movie Funny Girl starring Barbara Streisand. Now if you've just watched Deadpool 1 and the sequel Deadpool 2, Barbara Streisand might sound a little bit familiar because in the sequel, Vanessa and Wade are watching the movie Yentl and then Wade later references the song Papa Can You Hear Me several times throughout the film. Now I'm not exactly sure what this means except that perhaps by the time the sequel rolled around the writers had decided to acknowledge in a very small way the Ajax love story. They're saying that both Ajax and Deadpool are fans of Barbra Streisand and her films. So maybe they're trying to tell us that our theory is correct. And if these two men had just realized their shared love of Barbra Streisand, maybe their story would have ended differently. Wow, that totally proves it, dude. Oh yeah, no, 100%. Like I said, I wasn't one of the, you know, ingenious people who saw this the first time watching it.

But now that I know it, you know, I feel like it improves the movie. And I very much would rather believe that Ajax was a tragic love hero than a tragic anti-hero. Yeah, anti-villain. A tragic love villain rather than just a stupid villain. I agree. i'm so glad i could open your eyes to that um yeah no i love i love deadpool i think it's a great movie i think everyone who worked on it really put their hearts into it i i love watching it i'm just so glad it exists um yeah i mean uh i think that about wraps it up i think that's about everything i have to say about it awesome all right well that has been the popcorn isn't real thanks everyone for watching and join us next time for more awesome fan theories on popular films yep i'm torvald and i'm leif see you later see you next time bye thank you so much for listening opening music for this episode was provided by christine if you want to see how our theory holds

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