May (2003) Timeline Explained – Every Event in Order

May bites Adam because she gets overly excited while watching his avant-garde film about cannibalistic lovers. The film depicts cannibalism as an expression of love, which resonates with May's distorted view of intimacy. When they kiss, she physically acts out this concept by biting his lip, mistaking the film's violent romanticism for an acceptable way to show affection.

• may bites adam
• cannibal film
• adam's movie
• intimate moment gone wrong

May kills Loopy in a moment of rage and despair after overhearing Adam and his friend call her a lunatic. The cat represents her failed attempt at normal friendship and domestic life. When May feels overwhelmed by loneliness and rejection, she takes out her frustrations on the only living thing that depends on her, showing her complete emotional collapse.

Foreshadowing: Polly gives Loopy to May as a gift, symbolizing the possibility of companionship that ultimately fails.

• loopy cat
• may kills cat
• polly's gift
• rage kill

May brings Suzy to the blind school because she believes children who cannot see will accept her without judgment. She sees them as pure and uncorrupted by the visual prejudices that made her childhood miserable. May desperately wants to share her only friend with others who won't reject her based on appearance, but the incident spirals into chaos when the glass case shatters and she bleeds among the children.

• blind school
• suzy doll
• may visits children
• attempted connection

May stabs Blank because he discovers the corpse of Loopy wrapped in plastic and calls her a freak. Blank is the first person who seemed interested in her peculiar madness, so his rejection triggers her violent rage. This rejection mirrors the childhood teasing about her lazy eye, and May responds to this familiar form of rejection with extreme violence.

Foreshadowing: Blank initially shows interest in May's unique personality, making his rejection hit harder.

• blank stabbed
• dead cat discovered
• freak called
• rejection violence

May kills Polly because she represents another failed attempt at friendship. After May's romantic pursuit of Polly, she becomes convinced Polly has betrayed her or rejected her. Dressed as Suzy, May approaches with a cold, calculated demeanor and stabs Polly, believing this will create a perfect friend from someone who once showed her kindness.

Foreshadowing: Polly shows romantic interest in May and gifts her Loopy, making her a target of May's twisted desire for connection.

• polly killed
• halloween murder
• friend betrayal
• may kills coworker

May kills Adam because he represents her first and most significant rejection. After their relationship ended following the biting incident, Adam became a symbol of her failure to connect normally. On Halloween, May tracks him down and stabs him, viewing this as the ultimate way to possess someone who once accepted her quirks but ultimately abandoned her.

Foreshadowing: Adam's rejection after the biting incident and his conversation with a friend labeling May a lunatic directly leads to this confrontation.

• adam killed
• halloween
• final confrontation
• first love rejection

May creates Amy because her mother taught her that if she can't find a friend, she should make one. After murdering the people she wanted to befriend, May literally follows this childhood lesson by sewing together body parts from Adam, Polly, and Blank. She believes this composite creature will finally be the perfect friend who will never leave or reject her.

Foreshadowing: May's mother gave her Suzy with the moral 'If you can't find a friend, make one' - a phrase May takes literally.

• amy created
• sewn body parts
• macabre friend
• mother's advice

May stabs her own eye because she wants to literally give Amy a piece of herself to create an unbreakable bond. The eye is significant because May's lazy eye caused her childhood isolation and shaped her entire sense of self. By giving her eye to Amy, May believes they will finally be connected in a way no one can sever - sharing the same vision, the same flaw, and the same loneliness.

Foreshadowing: May's lazy eye has been a central source of her trauma since childhood, making her eye symbolically crucial to her identity.

• self-mutilation
• eye stabbed
• connection creation
• perfect friend

May becomes obsessed with Suzy because the doll represents her only consistent source of companionship throughout her traumatic childhood. When other children mocked her lazy eye, Suzy was there. As an adult, when all human connections fail, May returns to this childhood coping mechanism. She begins hearing Suzy speak to her through crackles in the broken glass case, showing her descent into delusion.

Foreshadowing: May's mother gifts her Suzy in childhood with the moral 'If you can't find a friend, make one' - establishing Suzy's importance.

• suzy doll
• childhood friend
• delusion
• glass case voices

May turns to Polly because she desperately needs human connection after Adam rejects her. When Polly shows interest and flirts with May, she sees it as an opportunity for the acceptance she craves. Polly represents a safe, available alternative to Adam - someone who accepts her oddities without the romantic complexity that led to disaster with Adam.

Foreshadowing: Polly teases May about being odd but also shows romantic interest, creating an opening for connection.

• polly relationship
• may and polly
• rebound connection
• acceptance seeking

May dresses as Suzy on Halloween because she wants to embody her ideal version of friendship - the perfect, unjudging companion. By becoming Suzy, May believes she can approach people as her true self without the fear of rejection based on her appearance. The costume represents her attempt to mask her flaws and present the idealized friend she wishes she could be.

• suzy costume
• halloween outfit
• disguise
• ideal self

May's social awkwardness stems from childhood trauma caused by her lazy eye. As a child, an eye patch intended to help her instead marked her as different, leading to bullying on her first day of school when a child asked if she was a pirate. This early rejection set her on a path of isolation, leaving her with only her doll Suzy as a companion through childhood and into adulthood.

• lazy eye
• childhood bullying
• isolation
• eye patch
• social awkwardness