After the terrifying events of the night before, Suzie wakes up haunted by the murder of her friends in the movie theatre. Meanwhile, police focus their attention on the theatre's projectionist Hank Grogan at the request of their Chief, Clint Bowers. Adding to the mystery was there were no bodies found at the scene – just the blood.

Two officers reflect on what they saw, especially with one having a child that went to school with the boys, and declare whoever did it “sick”. They sit in wait outside of Grogan’s house. Ronnie overhears Hank talking about the situation with her grandma, fearing they’re about to pin everything on him and are trying to intimidate him.

Ronnie’s grandma insists that Ronnie go back to school, despite what people are saying about them. Hank catches her listening to the conversation and assures her that everything will be alright.

Across town, Major Leroy Hanlon is setting up his new home as his wife Charlotte and son Will arrive. They’re looking forward to a new life together, but Charlotte is uncertain, noticing the looks they get from the predominately white neighbours. Leroy gifts Will – an exceptionally bright kid with an interest in science - a telescope so he can look at planets and stars.

That evening, Leroy looks through a case file while in bed, and Charlotte notes his bruises from the attack the night before. He decides not to tell her how she got it.

At school on Monday, a board informs pupils that a townwide curfew is in effect as a result of the murders. Marge arrives on the school bus, primping herself before approaching Patty and the other girls, but they blank her and block her out of the circle. Patty pushes Elaine to share who she has a crush on, but they laugh in her face when she admits it’s Scotty ‘Scott the Snot’ Mills. Marge wins herself back in by mocking Scotty, but then Patty shuts her down.

The girls stop laughing when they see Ronnie arriving at the school, questioning if she knows “where her dad hid the bodies” and how she has the audacity to be there. Ronnie is met by Lilly, who is friendly towards her.

As school continues like nothing has happened, Lilly is nervous and still in shock. Marge tries to talk to her to see if she’s OK, but she doesn’t say much. Marge asks if she’s been ignoring her and tries to warn her off talking to Ronnie – saying it will get people talking and she’ll be shunned out of “the Pattycakes” if she continues. Lilly tells her she doesn’t care – two of her friends have died.

As class starts, Will arrives late for his first day. This gets him in hot water with the teacher and is told to take a seat, but his presence is obviously a distraction in class, with one boy swiping his seat from under him. While the class laughs at the new kid, one boy is nicer, complimenting him on his pencil before handing it back to him.

At the army base, Leroy is pulled in to see Colonel Fuller, who informs him that one of his attackers has been identified as Airman Masters, with the weapon related to the incident – a Makarov P10 – being found in his barracks. Fuller says Masters has confessed, though notes that he’s no Soviet spy, likely just looking to “scare a coloured airman”. Fuller assures him that racism has no place at their base, and trusts Masters will flip on his co-conspirators in time. Before leaving, Leroy asks to confirm the model of the gun one more time.

Charlotte goes for a walk around town, taking in the streets of Derry and noticing the strange looks she gets as she goes about her business. She sees a small group protesting against the erection of a new statue of folklore figure Paul Bunyan. To some is considered a mythical hero, but to the protest group the statue is an eyesore. At the butchers’, she orders meat for dinner, and the owner notices that she’s new in town. While she thinks it’s because she “sticks out” for her skin colour, he tells her he meant nothing by it – it’s a small town and he knows people’s faces. He introduces himself as Stan Kersh, joking that he’s known as Stanley Cleaver, and welcomes her to Derry.

Outside Charlotte spots a group of kids beating up a young boy, and when no one else stops it, insisting “boys will be boys”, she steps in herself to protect him. The leader of the group stares at her, giving the victim enough time to escape, albeit temporarily as the boys resume their pursuit. Her interruption is met by further strange looks from the townsfolk.

Sharing the story over dinner that night, Charlotte tells Will to be kind, though Leroy encourages her not to get involved with something like that again because they want to fit in. It becomes clear that Charlotte got in trouble at their former home in Shreveport for being part of protests. They ask Will about school, fearing he could get bullied, but he stays quiet, before excusing himself.

At Ronnie’s house, her father and grandmother continue to argue about the police presence outside their home. Ronnie is in bed, and after examining a bedside picture of her late mother, she pulls the sheets over her head to drown out the noise. Suddenly, a low thumping noise starts emanating from her mattress. She tries to pull the sheets back down, but they trap her inside and turn membranous and visceral, before flooding with amniotic fluid. She’s forced to tear her way out, where she’s terrified to see her bed transform into a creature resembling her mother, who blames her first for tearing her apart and killing her at birth, then also for making a mess of her bedroom. Finding she is now attached to the creature by an umbilical cord, it attempts to drag her back inside, with the monster’s womb now a snapping maw filled with razor sharp teeth. Frantically, Ronnie severs the cord by biting it. The beast makes another lunge for her, but the commotion is enough to alert her father who bursts through the door. Everything disappears, leaving her a panicking wreck on the floor.

At a bar, three black airmen are enjoying a drink and shooting the breeze. Two have been questioned at length over the attack on Leroy. They ask why they would be suspected of attacking another Black airman, and write it off as “some cracker s**t”. The third, Dick Hallorann, notes he was never questioned but can’t talk about his day due to his involvement in a “super-secret spy mission” at the base, which makes the others laugh.

Meanwhile, Police Chief Bowers is put under pressure by two councilmen at the bar to arrest Hank, believing that he’s the one who killed the kids. Bowers says the investigation is ongoing, but tells them that with no evidence and with Hank having an alibi, he can’t just bring him in. They warn him to get answers immediately or they’ll find someone who will. With the atmosphere getting tense and fearing an altercation, Bowers pulls the barman over and flags the three Black officers in the corner. Without a word being said, the officers know it’s time to leave. Luckily Hallorann knows a guy who can hook them up with some moonshine.

Arriving back to base drunk, they are scolded by the guardsman as it’s currently on lockdown. Security calls the OD, but Hallorann tells him to give his name, as he has privileges. The guard ignores him, but changes his tune once he makes the call, allowing them through. The group asks what exactly he is doing that gets him off the hook so easily.

The next day, Hallorann is seen stationed at a dig site, feeling worse for wear. General Fuller reprimands him for not showing enough progress. He is dubious about “the gift” he is supposed to have and accuses him of fabricating his past results in exchange for privileges. Hallorann tells him they are close to finding what they are looking for.

At school, Lilly shuns the Pattycakes to sit alone, which Marge notices. When Ronnie joins her, the rest of the group spot it too, mocking Lilly. Marge continues to act the clown, which makes the girls laugh apart from Patty, who continues to belittle her.

Ronnie shares last night’s events with Lilly. She asks what Lilly told the police, and she said she told them she wasn’t sure what she saw but told them Hank wasn’t there. Ronnie gets angry, telling her if she doesn’t tell the truth about the monster coming out the screen the police will take her dad away. Lilly says she can’t, fearing being sent back to Juniper Hill psychiatric hospital. Ronnie furiously screams at her in front of the entire cafeteria and is eventually pulled away by a teacher.

Meanwhile, Will is avoiding the cafeteria and eating his lunch on the floor in the hallway. The friendly boy from his class joins him, showing an interest in his science book. The Pattycakes walk by, distracting the kid, who appears to have a crush on them all. When he snaps out of it, he introduces himself as Rick. Their meeting is short-lived, as a stink bomb is thrown down the hallway. Rick tells him to run, but in doing so he knocks over the teacher he angered the day before.

Both Ronnie and Will are sent to detention and left alone, and they get talking. She mocks him for reading a science book for fun, but he insists he finds it interesting.

Outside the school grounds, the police pull Lilly out of school. Ronnie panics as she sees her getting put in the back of the police car by Chief Bowers.

At the station, Bowers pushes Lilly about Hank being at the cinema the night of the tragedy, telling her that “people deserve justice”. He tells her she has a “reputation” around town due to her mental health and the death of her daddy, and that as the only witness, she could become a suspect. When she continues to maintain Hank wasn’t there, he threatens to send her back to Juniper Hill, before rephrasing the question to make it looser, and instead asks her if she could be “absolutely certain he wasn’t there”?

Shortly afterwards, Hank is arrested by the police, with Ronnie and her grandmother screaming and heartbroken. The scene is watched on by their neighbours, who do nothing. Ronnie runs off to Lilly’s house demanding answers about what she said and did to get her father taken away. Lilly’s mother shuts the door in her face while Lilly says that she was tricked.

At the army base, Leroy visits Masters in the brig. Pulling out a Makarov PM and a loaded magazine, remarking how difficult a model it is to load and cock, and how his attacker was able to do it one-handed. Leroy demands answers from him, saying that, while he fully believes Masters is a racist who wants him gone, he doesn’t believe Masters knows how to use a Soviet-issue gun because, according to his files, he can barely strip down standard issue US guns. Goading him into attacking by insulting his mother, Masters furiously tries to put the gun together but fails – proving he couldn’t have been the one to attack him.

Leroy then visits General Shaw to tell him Masters is innocent and he will be filing a report to conduct further investigation. Before he leaves, Shaw tells him to sit down and talks about his “damaged amygdala” – a brain injury he suffered in Korea. The amygdala processes fear, and since it’s damaged, he’s essentially fearless. Shaw says the entire attack was a test, and he passed. While he understands he’s obligated to report him, Shaw offers Leroy something else instead – a new mission.

Going grocery shopping for her mother, Lilly walks the aisles at the store. Before long, things become unnerving. The aisles move on their own and become labyrinthine; she passes the same cereal and jarred pickles shelves over and over again; other shoppers glare at her strangely and seem to follow her; she hears voices saying she should be “locked up” and is “insane”. Finally coming to a dead end, she pictures the decaying faces of Matty, Paul and Suzie on boxes of cereal, and envisions her father’s face and body parts trapped in a jars of pickles, which fall and shatter around her. The body parts come together to make a disgusting octopus-like creature, which slithers over her and asks for a kiss. The store clerk then snaps her out of the nightmare, and she’s left in a normal aisle with a shattered jar of pickles in front of her. With no other choice, Lilly is sent back to Juniper Hill by her mother.

Back at base, Shaw and Leroy head into the "Special Projects" bunker, where Leroy is informed about their secret mission - Operation Precept. He informs him of the situation in Cuba – which will come to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. They are searching for something that will win the Cold War without a single missile being fired. The first task is to retrieve a weapon that was hidden in Derry years ago. The thing in question commands fear for anyone who comes close to it. While they aren’t sure what it is or how it works, with his brain damaged the way it is, he may be the only one able to secure it.

Halloran informs the team they’ve found something on the work site – which they believe to be a beacon guiding them towards the secret weapon. They attend it's unearthing and find it a jalopy filled with dead bodies – Halloran notes “We’re close.”