Heathers: The Musical (2022) Timeline Explained – Every Event in Order

Veronica Joins the Heathers

Seventeen-year-old Veronica Sawyer despairs at Westerberg High School's hellish social hierarchy, where her best friend, the heavyset Martha Dunnstock, is tormented by jocks Ram Sweeney and Kurt Kelly. The school is ruled by a clique called 'the Heathers', made up of Heather McNamara, Heather Duke, and the 'mythic bitch' Heather Chandler. When Veronica's talent for forgery gets the Heathers out of detention, they give her a makeover and elevate her into their inner circle.

When

1989

Where

Westerberg High School

The Forged Love Letter

Three weeks later, Heather Chandler orders Veronica to forge a love letter from Ram to Martha. When Veronica hesitates, Chandler threatens to strip her of her new status and return her to being a nobody. Cornered and afraid of losing her place in the clique, Veronica ultimately gives in to the cruel demand.

When

Three weeks later

Where

Westerberg High School

The Mysterious New Kid, J.D.

Jason 'J.D.' Dean, a mysterious, poetry-quoting new student, criticizes Veronica for betraying her best friend. After J.D. wins a fight against Ram and Kurt, Veronica finds herself unexpectedly attracted to him. Although her parents disapprove of her friendship with the Heathers, Veronica insists on staying with the clique so she can survive high school.

Where

Westerberg High School

Opening Up at the 7-Eleven

Veronica runs into J.D. at a 7-Eleven and flirts with him, and the two begin to grow closer. J.D. opens up about his personal struggles and explains that he intentionally gives himself brain freezes to numb his grief. The conversation deepens Veronica's fascination with the troubled outsider.

Where

7-Eleven

Homecoming Party Fallout

At Ram's homecoming party, Veronica gets increasingly drunk while the Heathers carry out a cruel prank on Martha. Furious, Veronica angrily resigns from the group and vomits on Heather Chandler's shoes, prompting Chandler to vow to destroy her reputation. Believing she has nothing left to live for, Veronica later breaks into J.D.'s bedroom and sleeps with him.

Where

Ram's house

Heather Chandler's Fatal Drink

Tormented by a nightmare about Chandler, Veronica heads to her house with J.D. in tow to apologize. J.D. secretly adds toxic drain cleaner to a mug intended as a hangover cure, and Veronica accidentally grabs the poisoned mug without noticing the switch. When Chandler refuses the apology and drinks the concoction, she drops dead on the spot. A panicking Veronica is convinced by J.D. to forge a suicide note that paints Chandler as complex and misunderstood, and the fictional version becomes even more revered in death than in life.

Where

Veronica's house

The Cow Pasture Attack

Heather McNamara summons Veronica to a cow pasture, where she and Duke are stranded with a drunk Kurt and Ram. Upon Veronica's arrival, Duke reveals the jocks will only leave the girls alone if Veronica is handed over, and the Heathers abandon her. Kurt and Ram unsuccessfully try to rape Veronica, but she manages to embarrass the pair and escape.

Where

Cow pasture

Duke's Reign of Terror

Chandler's ghost appears to Veronica, warning that she kept the jocks and Heathers in check and that things will only get worse without her. Heather Duke assumes Chandler's status and her symbolic red scrunchie, becoming an even greater tyrant, while Ram and Kurt tell everyone they had a threesome with Veronica. Branded a slut, Veronica watches as J.D. attacks the jocks to defend her, only to be savagely beaten.

Where

Westerberg High School

The Cemetery Murders

Veronica and J.D. plan a vengeful 'prank': she lures Ram and Kurt to the cemetery with the promise of a real threesome, intending to shoot them with supposedly harmless 'ich lüge' tranquilizer bullets and leave a forged suicide note claiming the jocks were gay lovers. J.D. shoots Ram while Veronica's shot misses Kurt. As Veronica realizes the bullets are actually real and Ram is dead, J.D. shoots Kurt as well and proclaims his undying love to a horrified Veronica.

Where

Cemetery

The Double Funeral

At Ram and Kurt's double funeral, a distraught Veronica reflects that the boys could have outgrown their immaturity. Grief-stricken, Ram's father chastises Kurt's father for remaining homophobic, until Kurt's father suddenly kisses him, revealing their own secret love affair. The boys are turned into martyrs to homophobia, and J.D. becomes increasingly convinced his murders are for the greater good.

The Ultimatum and Martha's Heartbreak

J.D. urges Veronica to target Heather Duke next, but she refuses, prompting J.D. to complain about doing nothing in the face of injustice. He reveals he witnessed his mother's suicide as a young boy, and Veronica gives him an ultimatum: give up violence and live a normal life with her, or lose her forever. J.D. agrees and they reconcile, but Martha later presents Ram's 'love note' as proof that J.D. murdered the jocks. Urged on by Chandler's ghost, Veronica confesses that she wrote the note herself, leaving Martha heartbroken and running off in tears.

The Televised Therapy Assembly

Ms. Fleming holds a televised therapy assembly, where she publicly breaks up with Steve and urges everyone to reveal their fears and insecurities. Only Heather McNamara comes forward, admitting her grief and suicidal thoughts after losing Kurt and Chandler, but Duke mocks her and whips the students into a frenzy. Veronica blurts out a confession to the murders, but everyone dismisses her as desperate for attention. When McNamara attempts to overdose in the bathroom, Veronica saves her, and shortly after, realizing how unstable J.D. is, Veronica breaks up with him.

Where

Westerberg High School

Martha's Leap and J.D.'s Siege

Martha, mourning Ram, tries to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, but she survives the fall. A distraught Veronica rushes home, only to find that J.D. has told her parents she is suicidal, and he breaks in through the window, revealing his 'petition' is actually a mass suicide note. Taunted by the ghosts of Kurt, Ram, and Chandler, Veronica barricades herself in her closet before faking her death by dangling from a noose. Believing her dead, a grief-stricken J.D. flees to the school to bomb the pep rally.

Where

Veronica's house

The Showdown at the Pep Rally

Having faked her death, Veronica races to the school where the pep rally is underway and confronts J.D. in the boiler room, where he is shot during their struggle. Unable to disarm the detonator, Veronica carries it out to the empty football field so the bombs will detonate out of range of the school. J.D. convinces her to let him take the detonator instead, and the explosion kills him but saves everyone else.

When

During the school pep rally

Where

School boiler room

A New Era at Westerberg

Back at school, Veronica takes Chandler's red scrunchie away from Heather Duke, ending the era of social ridicule once and for all. She then invites Martha, McNamara, and Duke to hang out, rent a movie, and simply 'be seventeen' before childhood is over. With the clique's reign of terror finally over, a kinder and more honest era begins at Westerberg High.

Where

Westerberg High School