Varun Narayanswamy
‘Deadpool’ 2016 was a massive success. Not a lot of people (except the comic-book reading audience) knew abut the foul-mouthed antihero but once it hit theatres, they all turned up to see and loved it. It was such a fresh X-Men movie, which doesn’t take itself too seriously. Anyways, following the success of Deadpool prompted the filmmakers to go ahead with making its sequel. Tim Miller couldn’t return to direct it so David Leitch (known for directing the first John Wick movie and ‘Atomic Blonde’) stepped in to direct the sequel. Well long before the shooting even started, we came to know that Josh Brolin would be playing the time-travelling soldier. This was actually quite a big deal not only for Brolin but for us too as he was also gonna be playing the supervillain Thanos in MCU’s ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ just three weeks before Deadpool 2’s release. Well, that’s actually quite a commendable feat for Josh Brolin, to play the villain in two superhero movies both releasing in the space of three weeks which ended up grossing more than $2.5 billion at box office globally. So basically, when Deadpool’s trailers dropped in, we got an idea that Brolin’s Cable will the main villain in the sequel. So what’s the ending all about? What’s with those post-credit scenes? To understand that, we have to go over the plot.
The Plot
Following the events from the first film, Deadpool aka Wade Wilson works as a mercenary with great success when his girlfriend Vanessa approaches him with idea of starting a family to which he reacts with great enthusiasm. Tragedy strikes Wade when on his anniversary, one of his targets whom Wade failed to kill barges into his home and kills Vanessa while Wade was too late to save her. Despite killing him in revenge, Wade is left with a Skee-Ball token, an anniversary gift as a final memento of Vanessa. Extremely distraught and depressed and with no inclination to move on, Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead decide to aid him by taking him to the X-men mansion so as to give him a place to recover and Wade reluctantly agrees to join the X-Men, something he never really had no inclination of doing so earlier.
Russell Collins aka “Firefist” and Cable
In enters Russell Collins aka Firefist, a mutant teenager who gets into a standoff with the authorities. Deadpool, Colossus and Negasonic intervene at the scene when Deadpool realizes that the kid has been abused in the orphanage and attempts to calm him down. It doesn’t go well as Russell panics and kills a staff member before Colossus intervenes and stops him from killing others. Deadpool and Russell are arrested and get transported to an ice box, an isolated prison for mutant criminals. Despite Russell’s efforts to befriend Wade, Wade ignores him and accepts his fate and is willing to die. This is when Cable, a cybernetic soldier enters the picture who travels back in time to the present day and infiltrates the ice box, killing all the security guards and goes for the boy before Wade intervenes and engages in a fist fight and tells Russell to run. Russell does so but before escaping, overhears Wade saying that he doesn’t care for him. Wade manages to escape but Cable manages to get hold of Vanessa’s token. Wade then gets a vision where his girlfriend Vanessa urges him to help the mutant kid.
The X-Force
Now this is where things get exciting. Deadpool on realizing that he cannot take on Cable alone in order to save the kid starts organizing a team called ‘X-Force’ with the help of his friend Weasel by recruiting some mutants. Their objective is to intercept a convoy transferring the mutant prisoners so they can rescue Russell and protect him from Cable. They decide to do this by jumping out of an airplane using a parachute but only Deadpool and Domino (another mutant whose power is just damn luck) make it out alive. While they’re busy engaging in battle with Cable, Russell still hurt over Deadpool treating him with cold contempt frees a fellow inmate Juggernaut in return that he assists him in killing his abusive headmaster at the orphanage. Despite Deadpool telling Russel that he has no need to go on a personal vendetta, Russell ignores him and the Juggernaut tears Deadpool into half in a rather bloody scene which is a little painful to watch. Thankfully for his healing powers, Deadpool seems to be alright and takes the time to heal.
Cable’s real intentions
Now this is where there appears to be a twist of events. All this time, we assumed Cable to be the real villain but it is only when Cable shows up at Wade’s doorstep and reveals why he’s after Russel. Apparently the only reason why Cable even travelled back in time is due to the fact that Russell who later becomes an adult and goes on a murderous rampage, killing Cables’ family. This is why Cable’s travelled back to the past in order to kill the teenager Russell, thereby altering the future. Wade who still believes that the young mutant should be protected agrees to join hands with Cable so as to prevent Russell from getting away with his first murder on the condition that he gives Wade a chance to talk Russell out from murdering his headmaster.
The Ending
Deadpool along with Cable, Domino and driver Dopinder intervene at the orphanage just when Russell and the Juggernaut are about to do murder. While Juggernaut overpowers most of the mutants and Russell is confronting with his headmaster, Colossus intervenes along with Negasonic and her mutant girlfriend Yukio. While Colossus is fighting with Juggernaut, Deadpool unsuccessfully tries to talk Russel out of murdering his headmaster. Seeing that Russell won’t be convinced, Cable attempts to shoot but Deadpool leaps in the way of the bullet, thereby sacrificing himself for Russell. Deadpool dies a slow death while Russell, moved by his sacrifice realizes that killing his abusive headmaster won’t bring him any peace and decides not to do so, thereby altering the future such that Cable’s family now is safe.
Deadpool has a vision just before his death where he learns that the most important thing in life is family and although he lost Vanessa, the X-Force, Russell and even Cable are his family and that he has to give his heart to them. Cable then decides to return the favor to Deadpool by using the last charge on his time-travelling device, which he needed to use in order to go back to his family in the future but uses it to go back a few minutes to strap Vanessa’s token (which he had taken) on Deadpool’s heart so as to shield him from the bullet’s impact. As a result, Deadpool survives and all ends well for them (As if anyone would’ve taken kindly to Deadpool’s death!) Cable decides to hang out in the present so as to ensure the future doesn’t go to hell.
Will there be Deadpool 3?
The ending is pretty neat as it goes to show how Deadpool’s character evolves as at the beginning, he only cared for himself and his girlfriend, but ends up caring for all those people who are close to him. Now that’s what you call good character development. Now what does thus mean for the X-Force? If Fox and the writers decide to take the entire team forward, we could eventually see an X-Force movie where the team will consist of Deadpool, Russell, Domino, Cable, Colossus, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Yukio and even Dopinder for that matter! Sure Dopinder’s got no mutant powers, he’s just a cab driver but that didn’t stop him from taking his cab and ramming down that cruel headmaster! It looks likely that the next film featuring Deadpool will be in a new X-Force movie rather than a third Deadpool sequel. However it needs to be reminded that Deadpool 2 doesn’t choose to directly tease X-Force and you could just walk away thinking that the whole X-Force storyline was just a gag just to kill some supporting characters (including Brad Pitt’s Vanisher who was there for just a second!). But an X-Force movie is said to be in works and Fox hopes to start shooting in October.
End Credits, Explained
In the post credits, we see that Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Yukio try to repair Cable’s time-travelling device for Deadpool to use. They soon realize that they made a big mistake as expected, Deadpool now intends to alter the past. So Deadpool ends up saving Vanessa’s life (Happy ending after all, eh?) and Peter’s life too ( We’re glad Peter made it out alive, he was too good to be killed anyways!) Now for those who have read the Deadpool comics or have seen the first film, then you now that Deadpool has a knack for breaking the fourth wall in order to tell jokes directly to the viewers.
Now this is where it gets super hilarious! Deadpool shows up at the end of the X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) which proves that he can use time-travel to travel to an alternate universe as this movie is set in another timeline. Now anyone who remembers watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine knows that it’s a disaster of gigantic proportions with everything going wrong right from the first minute of the movie. Ryan Reynolds actually made his debut as Wade Wilson in this movie. Later, at the end, we get to see a horrible, cringey-looking Deadpool as a villain with no mouth which looks like a joke to be honest and isn’t even that intimidating. Anyways, we’re re-introduced to this scene where Wolverine is about to battle with that horrible-looking Deadpool before the Deadpool we love shows up and kills the cringey-looking Deadpool. In short, Deadpool kills Deadpool and the significance of this scene is to indicate that the memories of that horrible looking Deadpool in that awful film are no more. A truly hilarious breaking-the-fourth-wall joke!
Oh but it gets even better! For those who don’t know this, Ryan Reynolds also starred in DC movie ‘Green Lantern’ (2011) where he plays the titular character. Anyways, the movie proved to be a major disappointment. Well, we get to see a scene where Ryan Reynolds is offered the script for Green Lantern before Deadpool shows up and shoots Reynolds in the head before he even gets to read the script. In short, they’re trying to convey to us that Ryan Reynolds is making fun of himself for being involved in such a terrible project! Truly, both these post credit scenes has to be one of the funniest post-credits in any superhero movie ever!
Read More: MCU Timeline, Explained
