“Approaching the Sun, brings definitive change.It will never again be the same. Appearing in our skies it is believed to be a prophecy of extraordinary events.The birth of kings… The death of Empires.After centuries… or millennia… the journey must end.Perhaps smothered by its own dust, the dark,soulless body continues eternally throughSpace and Time. It may disintegrate and crumbleinto inconsequential rubble. Or it may be lost forever; crashing burning… into the yellow sun.And tonight…as I look into the sky, and it looks back on me… I want to know…which am I? I need to know…is this the beginning of the journey……Or the end?” Frank Black

The episode opens with images from outer space, the life of a comet. The same comet appears in the night sky Frank Black is staring into, causing him to contemplate his own destiny and the relevance of the celestial body. In his monologue Frank is considering the “life” of a comet and it’s analogous relationship to our own existence. Referring to his immediate state, Frank asks, “is this the beginning or the end?”

As seen in the previous season’s cliffhanger… At the Seattle airport, Frank carries a sleeping Jordan out to the car as Catherine waits near the baggage carousel to retrieve their luggage. Posing as a solicitor, the Polaroid Man approaches Catherine. Using a hypodermic needle, drugs her and escorts/drags her to the airport parking lot and then secures her inside a hidden compartment beneath his automobile. As a frantic Frank alerts security about his wife’s disappearance, the Polaroid Man gets away. He makes his way to a high bluff, where he gazes upon the same two-tailed comet seen in the Teaser. A sheriff on routine patrol questions the stranger about his activities. The Polaroid man explains that the comet is an omen pertaining to the Millennial outcome.

Meanwhile, key Millennium Group members arrive at the airport having never been contacted by Frank… After an unsuccessful visit to a roadblock in search of Catherine’s kidnapper, Frank returns home to Jordan. As he sits by her bedside Jordan assures her father that Angels are in her room. In an intimate conversation Frank tells Watts and powerlessness. He wonders out loud what he must sacrifice to have Catherine back safely. Watts relates a story about a time when he and his wife were attempting to have another child (Watts had always wanted a boy). One day, Watts was assigned a case involving a murdered baby boy whose dismembered body was found inside a cooler. Watts came to believe that if he could find the child’s killer, he would be rewarded with a son. Wanting to uphold his end of his pact with God, he would not allow his wife to get pregnant. Today, he has three daughters but still no son. He tells Frank that he doubts it is possible to sacrifice one thing to get another. Meanwhile, the Polaroid Man ties Catherine to a support beam inside his dark cellar.

Watts instructs two Millennium Group members, Brian Roedecker and Dicky Bird Perkins, to install a special security system on Frank’s computer. Watts explains that Frank is now ready to receive more sensitive information. This comes as a surprise to Frank, who thought that he had been privy to all of the group’s files. Watts then tells Frank that the Polaroid Man’s interest in him is due to the Millennium Group’s interest in him– but he stops short of a full explanation.

After exhausting all of his usual resources and hypotheses in tracking down Catherine’s abductor, Frank realizes that answers to the profile lie within himself. As he turns from the information about the Polaroid Man to his own personal history he begins to find clues to Catherine’s whereabouts. A series of numbers flash within Frank’s mind. They are the address of a house his and Catherine’s former home. On his insistence police raid the house but find it abandoned. Frank remains there and eventually discovers a clue, another Polaroid of another house. Using his…