The Popcorn Isn't Real · Ep. 4 (Deadpool (2016))
Deadpool Is Ajax's Unrequited Love Story
It was never about Wade and Vanessa. The man who can't feel anything, only feels when Deadpool says his name, and he spends the whole movie chasing that feeling.
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
The Villain Who Feels Nothing
"I no longer feel anything."
Start here: he has no powers, only a missing sense
While strapping Wade down, Ajax explains what the experiment did to him. "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." That is the whole villain. He isn't superhuman, he's handicapped, a man missing his sense of feel. So when something does make this man feel, it is the single most important thing that can happen to him.
Deadpool Makes Him Smile
"Made you look."
The first crack in a man who feels nothing
Right after Ajax announces he feels nothing, a gagged Wade begs to speak. They pull the gag, and his first move is a joke. "You have something in your teeth, right there, in the middle." Ajax smiles, even chuckles under his breath, then catches himself, glares, looks away, and checks his teeth in the mirror. "Made you look!" says Deadpool. To the man who just swore he feels nothing, it lands hard. This is the spark.
Then Deadpool Learns His Name
"How tough can he be with a name like Francis?"
The dam breaks when Wade says "Francis"
Wade discovers his captor's real name and taunts him with it. "How tough can he be with a name like Francis?" Something breaks inside of him. The man who feels nothing suddenly glares, his whole face changes. He is not hiding it. He feels something, and it's white-hot. Anger, hate, maybe love, it doesn't matter. What matters is the trigger. Deadpool said his name, and from this moment Ajax's life starts to revolve around it.
"What's My Name?"
He asks Deadpool the same thing four times.
The question that runs the whole movie
Once the name lands, Ajax keeps asking Deadpool one thing, and he asks it four separate times.
Leaning in close before sealing the chamber: "Quick question, what's my name?"
Pinning a dazed Wade to the ground through the chest with rebar: "What's my name?"
Arms spread wide atop the ship: "Wade Wilson! What's my name?!"
And finally, beaten and dying with a gun to his forehead: "What's my name?"
He isn't asking this question to dominate Deadpool. He's craving the sound of it from Deadpool's lips, because hearing it is the one thing that makes him feel ANYTHING.
"Not Because I Need To, But Because I Want To"
Why he locks Wade back in the chamber.
He punishes Wade because it feels good
Before shutting Deadpool back into the vacuum chamber, Ajax tells him plainly why. "Now I'm gonna shut you in there again, Wade. Not because I need to, but because I want to." He says it himself. He doesn't need to do this. He wants to, because hurting Deadpool is one of the few things that makes him feel anything. And the instant he says it, he leans in close and asks the all-consuming question: "What's my name?"
"...Didn't Think So."
He's crushed when Wade won't say it.
Disappointment, not domination
That first "What's my name?" gets no answer. Deadpool just glares (he is secretly hiding Angel Dust's match in his mouth and physically can't speak). Ajax waits for it, hears nothing, and visibly deflates. He shrugs, turns away, and mutters "...Didn't think so," sounding genuinely sad, like he'd let himself hope and should have known better. A man running a power play would gloat at the silence. Ajax is let down by it, because what he actually wanted was to hear Deadpool say his name.
He's Jealous of Vanessa
"You have Wade Wilson to thank for this."
He takes the girlfriend to take out the rival
When Ajax grabs Vanessa, he tells her flat out, "You have Wade Wilson to thank for this." He makes sure she knows. This isn't about her, it's about Wade. He remembers that the one thing Deadpool said he wanted was to see Vanessa, and he can't stand it. Kidnapping her isn't strategy, it's jealousy. He wants to be the only one in Deadpool's head.
Signed: "Love, Ajax"
"You want her? Come and get her. ...Love, Ajax." Plus a smiley poop.
A villain doesn't flirt with his ransom note
To draw Deadpool out, Ajax texts him "You want her? Come and get her. The Scrapyard, 12pm. Love, Ajax," capped with a grinning poop emoji. It's playful, lighthearted, and signed with love. He even uses "Ajax" instead of Francis, all but daring Wade to come and say the real name to his face. There is no cold tactical reason to be this warm and this cute with a man you are planning to carve into pieces.
"Does He Write You Notes Too?"
Ajax to Vanessa, watching Deadpool. "He's such a romantic."
He's openly competing with the girlfriend
At the scrapyard, Deadpool spells "FRANCIS" out of the bodies of Ajax's men and yells "Yoohoo!" to get his attention. Ajax looks down at it, turns to Vanessa, and says, "Does he write you notes too? He's such a romantic." He is comparing his relationship with Deadpool to hers, keeping score against the girlfriend. There is no reason for a line like that unless he is jealous and wants what she has.
"Crawl Back Inside That Head of Yours"
Deadpool: "Oh, you never left!"
He needs to be the thing Wade thinks about
Atop the ship, explaining why he took Vanessa, Ajax shouts "What better way to crawl back inside that head of yours?" Deadpool fires straight back "Oh, you never left!" In a normal hero-versus-villain grudge, Ajax would just need Deadpool dead and out of his business. Instead he cares, desperately, about living rent-free in Deadpool's mind. That is not a man defending a cartel. That is a man who needs to be thought about.
He Could Run. He Tackles Deadpool Instead.
Last words, forehead against the gun: "What's my name?"
The unfeeling man chooses the feeling over his life
The ending makes no sense any other way. The ship has collapsed, Angel Dust and every goon are down, and nobody even knows Ajax survived the crash. He's badly hurt, he has no powers, and he is facing Colossus, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and an immortal Deadpool. He has a clean window to vanish, exactly as he did the first time Deadpool cornered him. Instead he tackles Deadpool barehanded and sees it through to the bitter end. Beaten, bleeding, both arms broken, he lifts his head against the barrel of Deadpool's gun and asks, one last time, "What's my name?" A man who feels nothing threw away his own survival for one more moment with the person who made him feel. Ordinary villains don't do that. Lovers do.
Every Line He Has Is a Love Line
Watch Ajax: he only ever talks about Deadpool.
His whole role is one long crush
Watch Ajax across the entire film and a pattern jumps out. Almost every line he speaks is about Deadpool, and almost every one is fond. He compliments Deadpool, talks about him warmly, or asks him to say his name. For a man who is supposed to feel nothing, every word out of his mouth betrays feeling, and all of it points in exactly one direction. Towards Deadpool.
"Well, Hello, Gorgeous."
Ajax's very first words to Deadpool.
His opening line is a compliment and a confession of envy
The first time the two come face to face in the film, after Deadpool has carved through a room of his men, Ajax's opening words are, "Well, hello, gorgeous." He calls Deadpool gorgeous, then tells him he should be grateful. "Apparently I made you immortal. I'm actually quite jealous." His very introduction to the man he is hunting is a flirtation and an admission of envy, he's jealous that Deadpool gets to feel everything and live through it while Ajax feels nothing and can still die.
"Hello, Gorgeous" Is a Streisand Line
Funny Girl, and the sequel quietly doubles down.
Both men are Barbra Streisand fans
"Hello, gorgeous" is one of the most famous lines in movie history, Barbra Streisand's opening words in Funny Girl, enough of a classic to land on AFI's 100 Years, 100 Movie Quotes in 2005. Now notice the sequel, in Deadpool 2, Wade and Vanessa watch Streisand's Yentl, and Wade keeps quoting "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" So Ajax opens his romance with a Streisand line, and Deadpool turns out to be a Streisand fan too. The writers are winking at us.
"I Almost Miss the Fucker"
He'd let Deadpool live, if it weren't bad for business.
He says it out loud: he likes Deadpool
Planning the kill with Angel Dust, Ajax stops himself mid-thought. "You know, it's funny. I almost miss the fucker. I like a challenge. But he's bad for business." Read it straight and it's a confession. He would happily let Deadpool keep hunting him and killing his men, if only it weren't hurting the operation. Francis misses him. He likes him. The one and only reason he's going through with the kill is the cartel's bottom line.
A Love Song Over the Opening
"Touch my cheek before you leave."
The film scores their relationship as a romance
The iconic opening freeze-frame, Deadpool tearing through Ajax's men in slow motion, plays over "Angel of the Morning," a tender love song. There is nothing loving in the violence on screen, unless the scene is about this relationship reaching its culmination: Deadpool is finally coming for Ajax, which is exactly what Ajax has wanted all along. And one of the song's repeated lines is "touch my cheek before you leave." The movie ends with the two of them landing hooks squarely on each other's cheeks, right before Deadpool kills him and leaves.
It Fixes the Whole Movie
Why fight an immortal?
Read it this way and the plot holes close
Taken at face value the plot barely holds together. Why doesn't Wade simply return to Vanessa the moment he's cured? Why does Ajax keep throwing himself at a man who cannot be killed, and refuse to flee even when fleeing is free? Read the film as Ajax's love tragedy and every plothole closes all at once. The story was never really about Wade and Vanessa. It's about Francis and Wade. A warped, one-sided love that drove a man who could feel nothing to throw away his life chasing the one person who made him feel everything. That version isn't just coherent, it's richer, and far more worthy of the Deadpool universe.
The Heelys Standoff
A perfect gag from the leaked script that never made the cut.
The deleted bit that's pure Deadpool
The script leaked years before the movie was ever made, and it had a freeway standoff that didn't completely survive to the silver screen. Mid-fight, cars stopped all around them, Ajax drags a hostage out of a car and puts a gun to his head to warn Deadpool off, so Deadpool immediately yanks a little girl out of another car and aims his gun at her head, for no reason except to match Ajax. Then he glances down at her feet and comments "Oh, Heelys. Nice." The studio cut it, a gun to a kid's head was apparently a bridge too far even at an R rating, but it's a flawless lost piece of Deadpool. Funny, unhinged, and telling you in one beat that he is absolutely not the hero.