May

"*That moment. That wonderful feeling of excitement. Why does it always pass?*"
—May
**May** is a character on the Prime Video series *Tales from the Loop*. She lives in Mercer, Ohio with her mother, Xiu and her father, Zhi. She is portrayed by Nicole Law.

She was a highly skilled tinkerer who was often in demand around Mercer, Ohio, though she was still in school and had not yet decided upon a career. She struck up a brief romance with Danny Jannson (secretly in the body of Jakob), but ended up having a much longer romance with another boy named Ethan. She became obsessed with the idea of freezing a moment in time, wanting things were good to last.

She had a somewhat low self-esteem and hated the idea of being alone.

## History

### The discovery

Jakob and Danny Jannson, two boys who attended the same school as her, both liked her. Jakob in particular was sweet on her, but could not get up the nerve to ask her out, while Danny was having a fling with another girl named Lauren. However, when the two of them switched bodies, Danny started seeing May under the pretense that he was Jakob. When Jakob confronted him about it, he said that he had done it for him. Jakob replied that if it was for him, they should switch back, but Danny did not want to switch back as he liked living Jakob's life. The two got into a big fight, which ultimately resulted in a rash move that left Jakob's consciousness trapped in a robot and Danny stuck inside his body.

May continued to see Danny/Jakob, but it was clearly only a fling. One day, while out fishing with her father, she discovered an unusual device, shaped somewhat like a flashlight, in the shallows of the lake. She took the device home and began tinkering with it. She attended a wedding with her parents, where she met a boy around her own age named Ethan. The two immediately hit it off. They snuck away from the wedding to a nearby forest.

### The promise

In the forest, May noticed that Ethan walked with a limp. He explained that he had been born with a defect in his foot. The two chatted, Ethan expressing that it felt like time moved slower in the forest, that the moment could last. Ethan showed her his deformed foot and told her that if it was normal, he would run. She agreed that he would be very fast. The two were then interrupted and had to return to the wedding.

The two continued to hang out together, getting to know each other. She even showed him her room, but the two of them were caught together in an intimate moment by her mother. With Ethan's help, May stole a component from a repairman named Lucas which she used to repair the strange device that she had discovered in the woods. One evening, at home, she put on a metal band which came with and turned it on. She discovered to her surprise that all sound in her home had stopped. She went downstairs and discovered her father frozen in the act of working on some papers and her mother standing at the sink, the flow of the water motionless as she prepared some vegetables. The device had the effect of stopping time completely for anyone who was not wearing one of the protective bracelets that came with it.

The next day, she went to school and met with Ethan at the school's gym. There, she showed him the device and gave him one of the protective bracelets, telling him that she had found a way for them to be together. She then turned on the device and took him out of the gym, showing him how all of the students, everything in the school was now frozen. They headed outside, where the entire town of Mercer was frozen around them. They had some fun messing with the townsfolk, then had a serious discussion about their future. They began a romance which lasted for over a month, just the two of them alone in the frozen world. During that time, Ethan made her a promise that he would always be there for her. She even taught him how to say "I love you" in Chinese.

### Special because it doesn't last

All things had to come to an end, and one day they talked about ending their time in their frozen world. Ethan asked May if she would break up with Jakob, but was less than impressed with her response: "I guess." He pressed her for a firm yes or no answer and she told him that she would. She flipped the switch on the stasis device, but nothing happened. It turned out that the component that she had replaced before had once again burnt out. The two went searching for one and the hunt led them to the home of the man she had stolen from before, Lucas. There, to May's shock, she discovered her own mother having passionate sex with Lucas. She then got annoyed with Ethan when he made a cavalier comment about it, not realizing that it was her mother. In the shock of it all, May went slightly crazy and began tossing all of the clothes out of the home, saying that she would make it so that they had nothing to cover themselves up with. She and Ethan got into a heated argument, which ended with him calling her a bitch and her calling him a cripple in return.

Badly hurt, Ethan walked away. May looked everywhere for him, but couldn't find him anywhere in the frozen town. She eventually tracked him down to the pier of the lake where she had found the stasis device. She begged him to turn and look at her, but there was no response. She approached him and found that he was frozen in time, the bracelet hanging suspended beneath his hand because he had removed it. Having found the needed component, she flipped the switch on the device. Saddened, both walked away from each other.

May confronted her mother with her knowledge of her infidelity by presenting her with an earring that she had found, but did not tell the truth to her father. She went out fishing again, where she told him that she didn't think that she was going to be with Jakob much longer. He gave her some advice that caused her to see things in a way she never had before, saying that sometimes things were special because they didn't last. Sometime afterward, she and Ethan met again on a street downtown. She told him that he had broken his promise and he responded by saying that she had said what she said. She started to walk away, and he called after her, reciting the Chinese phrase for "I love you" that she had taught him, but she just stared at him and then turned and walked away again.

### The unusual tractor

May used her skills as a tinkerer to help people around town. A security guard from the Loop named Gaddis turned to her for help when he discovered an unusual tractor in a field which he could not get to start. She examined a broken component on it and told him she could fix it. When he asked her how much it would cost, she told him not to worry about it. She asked him whose tractor it was and he showed her a photo of Alex that he found inside the tractor, asking if she recognized him, but she did not. She asked what would happen if the man came back for the tractor, and he replied that it would really be something. He then asked her if she had ever seen any holes out in the field, but she had not. She succeeded in repairing the tractor, which transported Gaddis to a parallel universe.

## References

1. ↑ IMDb - *Tales from the Loop* cast
2. ↑ "Transpose"
3. ↑ "Stasis"
4. ↑ "Parallel"