The first episode develops the relationship between James Jackson III, a wealthy plantation owner's son, and Easter, a slave. James marries a wealthy Southern lady, but he carries on with a lifelong affair with Easter, which will result in the birth of a girl, Queen. Queen's fair skin makes her soon notice that she is not as black as her fellow slaves. She is taken into the main plantation house to be the personal slave of James' daughter, where she spends her youth years trying to discern if Jackson is her real father. The Civil War seriously affects James' plantation putting an end to the old ways, and the family matriarch tells Queen to find some other place to live.

Reunited with Davis, the father of her son, Queen finds love but also hate as the man is lynched. Taking the road once more, Queen finds a new job and meets Alec Haley, who will become his husband and the father of her second son, Simon. Though Queen never finds an answer to her quest for belonging, she is at least moderately at peace with the place in which she finds herself. A household fire seems to be the triggering event that, together with her sons' departure, causes Queen's nervous breakdown. She has serious issues seeing her first son Abner depart, and her mental state worsens to the point that she needs to be institutionalized.