After losing his drive to continue surfing at Nazaré, Garrett McNamara decides to return to competitive surfing at other big-wave sites. In order to compete in a tournament at California's Mavericks surf site, he must surf there regularly, something that he has done many times in the past. McNamara returns to Mavericks only to suffer a horrific injury on a wave he should have aced.

Garrett McNamara recovers from the injuries he sustained at Mavericks and begins training to return to Nazaré for another season. While surfing at Indonesia's G-Land site, Garrett suffers more injuries that threaten to take him off the waves permanently. Meanwhile, a friend of Garretts catches an 80-foot wave at Nazaré, taking the world record from McNamara. McNamara resolves to continue his hunt for a 100-foot wave.

As dozens of top surfers from across the world arrive in Nazaré to train and prepare for a major big-wave competition, Garret McNamara continues to struggle with his physical injuries and mental preparedness. He knows he is not ready to surf in the competition but seeing the other surfers makes him consider competing anyway. Garrett also has misgivings about the state of safety plans at the competition, and tries to convince the organizers to beef up their plans.

The day of the Nazaré competition has arrived, and Garrett McNamara decides not to compete but instead support his long-time friend and teammate Andrew 'Cotty' Cotton. The competition does not go smoothly, with a major accident that has secondary effects on Cotty. After the competition, Garrett tries surfing at Nazaré again and realizes that can resume big-wave surfing. The episode concludes with retrospectives from a number of the surfers who appeared on various episodes throughout the season.