Intrigue

Dory, the regal blue tang, gets separated from her parents, Jenny and Charlie, as a child. Jenny and Charlie used to play games with Dory to help her overcome her memory loss. Weeks later, Dory was swimming in the ocean alone, asking other fish for help, but since she couldn't remember anything, nobody could help her. As she grows up, she gradually forgets them due to her short-term memory loss. She eventually meets and joins the clown-fish Marlin, looking for his son, Nemo, who was taken by divers to Sydney, Australia.

One year after reuniting Nemo with his father Marlin (Albert Brooks), Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) has become a helping hand in raising Nemo (Hayden Rolence). They all swim up to Mr. Ray (Bob Peterson), who is leading the class on a field trip. Dory volunteers to go along as an assistant and Mr. Ray reluctantly agrees. He talks to the class about migration and tells them that it's about going home. One kid asks Dory where her home is. The word "home" triggers a flash of a memory in her mind, but she quickly loses it. She swims near the rays and gets sucked into the undertow. Dory remembers being pulled away from her parents and then everything going black.

Mr. Ray finds her lying in the sand and she murmurs "Jewel of Morro Bay, California." When she wakes up, she realizes that she had a memory, something that never happened before. She remembers her family and realizes that they're still out in the ocean, somewhere, with no idea where she is. She sets out for the Jewel of Morro Bay with Marlin and Nemo following to keep her out of trouble. Marlin has an idea for how to get where they're going quickly.

With the help of Crush (Andrew Stanton) a sea turtle, they ride a water current to California. They jump off and see a sunken container ship, and a group of hermit crabs taking cover. The crabs shush Dory when she tries to ask for help, triggering another memory. As a young fish, she swam past a sunken ship and asked a group of crabs for help finding her parents, Jenny and Charlie, and they quickly shushed her.

Upon arrival, they are forced to flee from a predatory giant squid that nearly devours Nemo. The three of them swim as fast as they can with the squid in pursuit. Dory gets caught in a plastic six-pack ring. They swim through a small hole into a container and the squid shakes it, causing other containers to fall. In the scuffle, the squid grabs Nemo and pulls him toward its mouth. Marlin grabs Nemo and a container hits the floor causing the trio to be launched to safety, landing in a kelp bed.

Marlin tends to his son afterwards and is sour toward Dory for getting them into the mess. Feeling hurt, Dory travels to the surface to seek help and is rescued by staff from the nearby Marine Life Institute after being caught in six pack rings. The humans pull her into their boat and remove the plastic ring around her. Then they put her in a cooler and shut the lid. The ship heads toward the shore with Marlin and Nemo frantically swimming after it. They hear a voice say, "Welcome to the Marine Life Institute" She is separated from Marlin and Nemo.

Dory is sent to the Quarantine section and tagged. There she meets a grouchy but well-meaning, seven-legged octopus named Hank (Ed O'Neill). Dory's tag shows that she will be sent to a permanent aquarium in Cleveland. Hank tells Dory that she is in Jewel of Morro Bay.

Due to a traumatic ocean life, Hank wants to live in the aquarium instead of being released back into the ocean, so he agrees to help Dory find her parents in exchange for her tag. He grabs an empty coffee pot and uses it to scoop her out of the tank. Hank is taking Dory down the hallway and she sees a map on a wall. He brings her closer and she sees a purple shell. That triggers another memory of her parents laying purple shells all around their coral home.

In one exhibit, Dory encounters her childhood friend Destiny (Kaitlin Olson), a nearsighted whale shark who used to communicate with Dory through pipes. Destiny is near-sighted and has trouble swimming around the tank, but Dory stops her before she smacks the glass. She recognizes Dory's voice and tells her that they were childhood friends. Destiny tells Dory that she's from the Open Ocean exhibit and Dory asks her to take her there. Destiny tells her that she doesn't have any way to travel around. She and Hank start to make their way towards the Open Ocean exhibit, despite many challenges.

Bailey (Ty Burrell), a beluga whale lives in the Open Ocean Exhibit, who believes he has lost his ability to echo-locate. Dory learns that the rest of her regal blue tangs' species are being moved to Cleveland. She subsequently has flashbacks of life with her parents and struggles to recall details but vaguely remembers that her parents taught her to follow seashells & that purple ones were their favorites. She also remembers that her parents were in the Open Ocean exhibit. Destiny tells Dory that she can get to the Open Ocean exhibit by going through the pipes, taking two lefts and swimming straight. Dory worries that she won't remember the directions and Hank tells her there's no other way. His words trigger another memory, of young Dory trying to pry a shell loose from the sand. She thinks there's no other way to get the shell and is about to give up when her dad tells her that there's always another way and uses his tail to wiggle the shell loose.

Marlin and Nemo attempt to rescue Dory. With the help of two sea lions named Fluke (Idris Elba) and Rudder (Dominic West) and a common loon named Becky, they manage to get into the Institute. They bump into a boy who spills his popcorn on the floor. Flying in, Becky sees the popcorn, leaves the bucket hanging on a tree branch and flies down to eat it. Marlin and Nemo are stuck in the bucket with Becky still eating popcorn. Marlin tries to inch the bucket forward to get within Becky's earshot and it tips over, dumping them out and into a tank of toy fish in the gift shop.

Dory, meanwhile, with Hank, finally remembers how she became separated from her parents: she overheard her mother crying one night, left home to retrieve a shell in hopes of cheering her up, and was pulled away by an undertow current, which dumped her into the pipes system of the exhibit and out into the open ocean. In the Open Ocean exhibit, 2 crabs tell Dory that all the blue tang fishes are being shipped to Cleaveland for a new exhibit. Dory believes that her parents are in that lot & heads to quarantine, where the blue tang fishes are being kept before shipping.

Nervously, Dory swims into the pipes, quickly forgetting which way she's going. She calls out to Destiny and asks for help. Destiny tells Bailey to use echolocation to help Dory. Bailey is convinced that it won't work but gives it a try anyway and is surprised that he can visualize a map of the pipes. He guides her toward Quarantine but then he senses something else in the pipes. He tries to have Dory swim away but she keeps swimming closer.

Dory reunites with Marlin and Nemo in the pipe system. Together they get back in Quarantine, they locate the tank of blue tangs who tell them that Dory's parents escaped the Institute a long time ago to search for Dory but never came back. The tangs tell Dory that when a fish doesn't make it back from Quarantine, it means they're gone.

This leaves Dory under the impression that they died. Hank retrieves Dory from the tank (Hank was in Quarantine as he wants to get on the truck going to Cleveland), accidentally leaving Marlin and Nemo behind. He is then apprehended by one of the employees and unintentionally drops Dory into the drain flushing her to the ocean.

While wandering aimlessly, she comes across a trail of shells, remembering that when she was young, her parents had set out a similar trail to teach her how to find her way back home. At the end of the trail, Dory finds an empty home with multiple shell trails leading away from it. As she turns to leave, she sees her parents, Charlie (Eugene Levy) and Jenny (Diane Keaton), in the distance and joyfully reunites with them. They tell her they have spent years forming trails for her to follow in the hopes that she would eventually find them.

Marlin and Nemo end up in the truck taking various aquatic life to Cleveland. Inside the truck, Hank reveals himself to Marlin and Nemo and tells them that he lost Dory. Dory is swimming through the water, catching her parents up on everything that's happened to her. Suddenly, she hears the announcer voice from the Marine Life Institute. The next thing she hears is a truck starting up and she remembers that Marlin and Nemo are on it. She calls out to Destiny and she and Bailey jump over the walls of the tank, landing in the ocean next to Dory. They all swim after the truck, using a group of otters to stop traffic. One of the otters carries Dory into the back of the truck and Hank puts her in the tank with Marlin and Nemo. Marlin calls out to Becky, who flies in with her bucket. Marlin and Nemo jump in, but Becky flies off before Dory can join them. Becky dumps them into the ocean, right next to Destiny. She asks where Dory is, and Marlin tells them she's still in the truck.

Marlin calls to Becky and tells her to fly back to the truck and get Dory. Hank reaches into the tank for Dory, but she doesn't want him to leave her, and she gets him to agree to join her in the ocean. Just then, a staffer slams the back door and drives the truck away. Destiny swims after them but can't keep up. Dory sees a vent in the roof and Hank grabs her and moves toward it. Hank and Dory squeeze through the vent, and Hank plasters himself across the windshield, forcing the driver to stop. When the driver walks out, Hank shuts the door and locks it, taking control of the truck. He drives off with Dory navigating. She sees a car pulling a boat and follows it. Dory sees a splat on the windshield and sees that it came from a flock of seagulls heading left. She has Hank follow them and they drive up a hill. Dory sees the ocean at the bottom, and she tells Hank to floor it. The truck falls off the edge of a cliff and tumbles toward the ocean, sending all the fish inside flying. Dory and Hank happily plunge into the ocean below.

Back at the Great Barrier Reef, Dory is playing hide-and-seek with the students. Hank tells them that Mr. Ray is away on migration and until he gets back, Hank will be their substitute teacher. Bailey and Destiny tell the kids about Echolocation. Dory tells her parents that she'll see them in a while, but she wants to do something first. She swims off, with Marlin following after her, trying to keep himself hidden. She swims up to the edge of the drop-off, then calls out to Marlin, who sheepishly swims up to her. She tells him that she enjoys the view, and they both look out into the ocean.

The Tank Gang, still trapped inside their plastic bags, reach California after floating across the Pacific Ocean for a year. To their dismay, they are picked up by staff members from the Marine Life Institute.