Although they attempt to outwit Data, his pocket-calculator brain is too smart for them and the ship is taken way off course, leaving poor Willie Potts in danger from death by parasite. The ship arrives at its new destination, and Data automatically beams down to the planet where he encounters a mad Professor that looks just like he would, if he was wearing a prosthetic old-age face over his real face.

The madman breaks Data out of his trance and reveals that he’s Dr. Soong, Data’s creator. It was he who called Data through the use of a special homing pigeon device that no-one has ever noticed before. Good job Data didn’t walk past any magnets on the way, really.

On the ship, Jake and Willie refuse to reconcile, while the crew attempts to figure out how they’re going to stop the younger sibling from dying of the brain worms. Picard is very irritated now, presumably because of how everything has gone right back to normal after a Borg invasion and he’s secretly got PTSD.

As Soong and Data discuss the reason for his existence (vanity, basically) who should arrive, but Lore. Last seen floating in space, Lore’s pigeon-signal had also activated. Soong, excited to see his evil son, reactivates him while ignoring Data’s pleas for sanity, insisting that Lore is a good boy really. Lore immediately starts arguing with everyone, and just before his robo-son storms off Soong reveals that he’s close to death. He’s called Data there to give him an emotion chip. Unfortunately, because he didn’t know Lore had been rebuilt, he doesn’t have anything for him. No wonder Lore’s so angry all the time.

The next morning, Lore does exactly what he always does. Steals Data’s clothes and pretends to be him. Soong unwittingly installs the emotion chip in Lore and having double emotions sends him even crazier. He fatally wounds Soong and flees into the night. Worf and Riker arrive, having regained partial control of the ship, and Soong explains how to unlock Data’s repressed memories of the ship’s password so that they can all go home. Then he dies. Good job he did that after telling them the password secret, really.