baroque barbie

Jax and Pomni are doing the same ploy here, but with opposite goals.

Jax wanted to prove to himself that there was no connection between him and Pomni. Throughout his ensuing crashout, he wasn't trying to convince Pomni they were never friends; he was trying to convince himself. In his mind, if she pulled the trigger, that meant she never cared about him, and he had successfully kept the whole circus at emotional arm's length.

But Pomni saw through his charade, and she turned it back around on him. Unlike Jax, her motive wasn't to convince herself they were friends; she already knew that to be true. Instead, she was trying to force Jax to realize and admit that he cared about her.

In the end, Pomni's ploy was the one that worked. Sure, Jax went on his whole rant about how he sees everyone as his playthings and he doesn't care about any of them. But he still couldn't bring himself to physically hurt Pomni, even though he had done so in previous episodes (2 and 3). He's come to care about her.