The first episode starts with B-roll of the doctor walking by the contact site. She tells the interviewer that, when the aliens landed, she was a PhD student studying astrobiology and modeling planetary surfaces. She says that witnessing the aliens herself, at the contact site, changed her career, as she was introduced to the senator whom she would eventually attend the child custody meeting with five years later. In the next segment, the bystander, who captured a viral video of the aliens confronting the child at an intersection, says he and most people don’t trust the aliens.

The interviewer then asks the doctor why the aliens were so interested in the child and whether it was an individual or collective interest, to which the doctor says that the aliens have individuality but think as a collective, and are much more sentient than machine-like, to the extent that they can’t be dismissed as mere tools for humans—in fact, it’s the other way around.

The actor, when asked, talks about how she used to be a politician but then became an actor to star in a film about the aliens. In the next segment, the doctor says that the movie about the aliens is inaccurate, just more science fiction which has no correlation to reality. Back to the actor, she says that she chose to become an actor as it would give her more agency and authority with regard to the child custody meeting.

Next, the senator describes the child custody meeting, which happened in 2045, five years after the aliens arrived. She reiterates the recent history during which Americans panicked about the aliens, and a president even committed suicide. She defends her position in the child custody meeting, which was to advocate for the kid and ensure he stayed on Earth. In another segment, the bystander describes the viral video he took. In it, a pickup truck rams into a car. The alien appears, into the intersection, and reaches its appendage into the car to assess the vitals of the parents.

In the next segment, the actor says that the movie did well to tell the child’s story, but it’s not enough, which prompts her now to tell the full truth about what happened. She says that America itself has a problem with the family unit and that those same Americans can’t say that the aliens are unfit to raise one themselves. In another segment, the doctor is asked if she resents the aliens. She says that she is awestruck of them and cautious of them at the same time. Meanwhile, the actor says that the aliens have not only ushered in so much technological advancement for humanity, but the child’s parents in particular were absent, with no identifiable relatives, meaning that the child would be much better off with the aliens rather than, say, under state supervision.

In the next segment, the senator describes the No Family Left behind Act of 2042. It provides biotech implants for families, enrolling more of them than ever before, which allows access to quality of life improvements. However, as the interviewer mentions, it had the effect of causing many children of color, whose parents did not opt in to the program, like the child’s parents, to go into foster care. The interviewer asks the senator if the child would have become a ward of the state due to his circumstances. She gives no answer. Meanwhile, back to the bystander, he wishes he could have saved the child while he was still there. He laments that no one fought for him.

The doctor is asked to talk about the meeting with the senator and her lieutenant governor. She remembers how there were no personnel around actually equipped to deal with a child, like a social worker or child psychologist. She remembers that the child was already surrendered to the aliens. Meanwhile, the actor calls out the senator for invoking race into the matter, saying that such a thing would not have happened to a white baby.

The senator goes into detail about the political opportunism of it all. Ever since the aliens arrived, the United States has seen it as enemy, first launching a cyberattack on it which then backfired, causing a counterattack which devastated thousands of American soldiers. Since the United States has no agreements with the aliens, there was no incentive or accountability for them to ever return the child. The effort to take back the child, she says, was only a bipartisan front for the sake of saving face. Meanwhile, the actor says that it’s better for the child to be under alien custody, as the senator’s plan would have put him into the system as a ward of the state and provoked the aliens into possible conflict.

The interviewer, in separate segments, asks everyone what they think the child is up to now. The actor calls him a hero who made a noble sacrifice. The senator speculates that he may have merged with the aliens by now. The bystander says that he was a test case and that many children in the future may be taken by the aliens. The doctor seconds the bystander’s thoughts, saying that the child must have merged with the aliens by now—and that there’s more where that came from.