The chain of events leading up to Morgan's deal with the Devil, his time with Katrina, and ultimately his induction as the first collector are told for the first time in their entirety, as Morgan becomes overwhelmed by his memories of those fateful years.

After 650 years of collecting the souls of people who have made a deal with the Devil, Morgan Pym has had enough. He ask the Devil for the power to try to save his clients during their last 48 hours of life, by helping them atone for the evil that their deals have caused. But Morgan's client, a rap star, refuses to believe that his 10 years of fame and fortune are coming to a sudden end. Morgan struggles to convince the rapper to seek redemption before the clock runs out.

Medium Laura McKinney has spent the decade since making her deal trying to use her Devil-given powers to find the soul of her dead son. When Morgan contacts her, she refuses to seek redemption until she accomplishes her goal. Morgan tries to convince her that the deal was a sham, and that her powers aren't real, but discovers that Laura may hold the key to contacting his own lost love. Will Morgan have to give up his own dream in order to redeem Laura's soul?

Morgan's new client, Edwin Yancy, turns out to be a sweet, gentle man who success has been in writing popular children's books. Morgan is puzzled by what harm Edwin could possibly have done, and his search is hampered by constant visions of death and violence from his past that he doesn't seem to be able to stop.

Morgan's client is Ahneel Subramami, a yogi who made his deal with the Devil so that he could achieve enlightenment and pass it on to everyone. This succeeds too well when some of his students no longer fear death, and therefore commit suicide.

Also, Morgan is left questioning his beliefs when Subramami tells him that only what he believes will happen.

Morgan's client is Harvey Fenderman, who made a deal with the Devil to be able to create miniature landscapes and people. The Devil has caused Fenderman has recreate the village where Morgan and Katrina lived to cause pain for Morgan and sidetrack Morgan and Fenderman from finding Fenderman's redemption.

Things get disturbing when Morgan finds that the Devil has given Fenderman the power to create living miniatures. One of the miniatures looks exactly like Katrina.

Morgan's client is Escobar, a surgeon that once killed a man on the operating table, and asked the Devil for the powers to heal. For this case, Morgan is joined by Montreal Collector Sofia Marteau, a Collector who does not have the same deal as Morgan, and therefore is trying to track Escobar down to send him to Hell.

A young First Nations woman turns out to have sold her soul for a dreamcatcher that would stop the horrific nightmares that had driven to the brink of suicide, but they soon discover that the horror of her dreams seems to have spread to the Native community she left behind.

Morgan's client is a night shift pharmacist who sold her soul to be cured of the cancer that was about to kill her. But the Devil did something odd -- he gave her more of the cure than she needed for herself, facing her with a dilemma: should she try to cure others and risk exposure and an early trip to Hell?

"Beginnings" juxtaposes two stories: the Devil's initial training of Morgan as the first collector, and Morgan's memories of the beginning of his 10 years with Katrina. In the course of the episode we see the origin of the memories, both tender and troubling, that maintain Morgan's humanity even after Katrina's death, and also the Devil's nearly-successful first strike in snuffing out that humanity completely.