Plot

The USS Discovery crew is intrigued by new addition, Lt. Ash Tyler. Sarek seeks Burnham's help, rekindling memories from her past. Admiral Cornwell questions Lorca's tactics.

Tilly wants to make Captain one day, and Burnham starts training her. Morning runs, the correct diet and so on.

On his way to broker a peace deal with renegade Klingon houses, Sarek is injured when a "logic extremist" attempts to assassinate him. The logic extremist hold that humans are an inferior race, and they are no longer to willing Sarek's patronage of them. Burnham senses this through her telepathic link with Sarek and Lorca agrees to rescue him. Burnham is a human, but raised as a Vulcan by Sarek and his human wife Amanda, when Burnham's parents were killed in a Klingon attack. The logic extremists did not want humans in Vulcan society and bombed the learning center where she was educated. Burnham was dead for 3 minutes and Sarek used his Katra to revive her. The Katra has healing powers. So, now Burnham is linked to Sarek via the Katra. He gets hurt and she feels the pain.

Admiral Terral (Conrad Coates) confirms that the renegade Klingon houses were ousted by Kol's new ruling council. Vulcans were invited to bring the warring parties together to forge an alliance for the peace effort with the Federation. Sarek's role was to bring the houses together on a consensus platform for peace. Now he is lost in a nebula near Yridia. Lorca decides to rescue Sarek.

Lorca considers making Ash his chief of security.

Lorca takes the Discovery into the nebula, but the gases from the nebula make any type of scanning impossible. Burnham offers to go into the nebula in a shuttle in an attempt to mind meld with Sarek and use that to find his location. Burnham searches for Sarek in a shuttle with Tyler and her roommate, Cadet Sylvia Tilly. Ash is their pilot.

Cornwell brings her ship into the nebula to confront Lorca. Admiral Katrina Cornwell questions this decision and others that Lorca has been making. He launches an unauthorized rescue mission, using a convicted mutineer and a prisoner of war.

Burnham attempts to connect with Sarek's mind, and finds him remembering the time that her application for the Vulcan Expeditionary Group was rejected. Sarek was brutal in telling Burnham that she is incapable of competing with the Vulcans and cannot thrive in the Vulcan service. He offers to get Burnham into Starfleet, where the requirements are less extreme.

Sarek keeps kicking Burnham out of his memories. Burnham confides in Tilly that her failure is Sarek's last thought. Sarek didn't believe in her and yet she is the one to save him. Ash argues that as one dies, they don't think about how other failed them, they think about what they wish they had done differently. The question is, what Sarek wishes that he had done different with respect to Burnham's VEG application.

Burnham again mind melds with Sarek and learns that the VEG would only admit one of Sarek's children, and he chose Spock, his half-human son. Spock was then a child, but the VEG wanted to tightly control the integration of outsiders in its ranks. Spock ultimately chose to join Starfleet, rendering Sarek's decision futile. Sarek wished that he had supported Burnham's application to VEG, instead of Spock's. That day was Sarek's failure and not Burnham's.

Burnham helps him regain consciousness and activates a locator beacon.

Lorca and Cornwell have sex, but she is concerned by his paranoid behavior, when he pulls a Phaser on her when she touches her in deep sleep. Cornwell realizes the depth of the issue and plans to remove him from command of Discovery.

With Sarek unable to meet with the Klingons, Cornwell takes his place on Lorca's suggestion. Before leaving, Cornwell tells Lorca that he will lose his command after she returns. She will reinstate him once he gets some help. The peace talks are actually a trap, and she is taken captive by Kol. Kol's holographic image appears and, in Klingon, says he is pleased they captured her instead of Sarek. He promises cloaking technology to Dennas for capturing her. In English, he tells Cornwell looks forward to meeting her.

Saru informs Lorca of Cornwell's abduction. Lorca, uncharacteristically, orders him to get direction from Starfleet Command instead of going after her himself. He takes a look at the stars, with a Phaser now tucked behind in his pants.