Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) and Vanessa Carlysle’s (Morena Baccarin) relationship has changed fast in every movie in the Deadpool trilogy. It’s no different with Deadpool & Wolverine, which reveals another shocking development for the couple.
Warning: The following article contains major spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine.
In the first Deadpool, Wade and Vanessa’s intense love story comes to an abrupt (but temporary) end after he’s diagnosed with cancer, signs himself up for an experimental treatment, and ends up turned into a disfigured human. At the movie’s end, Vanessa accepts Wade’s new looks and is ready for their happily ever after.
Unfortunately, Deadpool 2 kills Vanessa in the first minutes of the projection, right after she and Wade decide to try to have a kid together. The choice of fridging Vanessa for Deadpool 2 has been deeply criticized. However, since the ending of Deadpool 2 brings her back to life, it felt like the franchise had the opportunity to treat Vanessa as a fully-fledged character instead of a unidimensional motivation for Wade. As we can now tell from Deadpool & Wolverine, that’s not the case, as in the MCU, the couple broke up years ago.
Why did Vanessa and Wade break up after Deadpool 2?
At the end of Deadpool 2, Wade uses Cable’s (Josh Brolin) time machine to travel through the multiverse and fix his mistakes. That includes stopping Vanessa’s assassination and giving his relationship one more shot. Deadpool & Wolverine reveals that Wade’s time-hopping adventures also led him to Earth-616, where he auditioned to join the Avengers — a scene that includes the perfect cameo. Wade wants to join the Sacred Timeline to prove to Vanessa that he can make a difference and be a real hero.
Wade doesn’t get the Avengers job, which leads to a depressive state where he can’t find meaning in his life. Deadpool & Wolverine underlines how Wade shutting himself for Vanessa is one of the reasons they grow apart. Since the film is set six years after the previous movie, the end of Wade and Vanessa’s relationship probably happened after a bumpy emotional rollercoaster. However, the threequel suggests that Wade not getting the Avengers job played a significant role in Vanessa’s decision to break up – which, to be fair, turns her into a sort of asshole.
To make Vanessa’s characterization in Deadpool & Wolverine worse, during Wade’s birthday, right at the beginning of the movie, she makes a snarky commentary about seeing someone who didn’t get her killed. It’s like Vanessa holds some grudge against Wade despite the fact he went back in time to prevent her death. Plus, she was fine with the whole affair by the end of Deadpool 2, which makes it weird for her to be potentially angry about it six years later.
The Deadpool trilogy is so oblivious to Vanessa as a character that it repeats the same mistakes from Deadpool 2. For starters, in the movie, her absence is the main thing that pushes Wade forward. In addition, after Wade makes his heroic sacrifice, the couple gets together again, teasing their happy future. Let’s hope Deadpool 4 gives Baccarin something more to do on the silver screen apart from being a worse villain than Cassandra Nova and getting back with her boyfriend the minute he gets famous for saving his world.