Tommy, the Rock Opera, is set against the backdrop of London during World War II. A young pregnant woman, Mrs. Walker, learns that her brand new husband is presumed dead in the war Soon after she finds out this news, she gives birth to their only son, Tommy.
Four years later, Captain Walker is found and freed from a POW camp. He goes home, only to find out that his wife has a new lover. He walks in while they are celebrating her twenty-first birthday. The Lover assumes that Captain Walker is an intruder and attacks him. During this, Tommy is watching this through a reflection in a mirror. Unaware of that fact, Captain Walker shoots the lover in self-defense and kills him.
Captain and Mrs. Walker tell Tommy, "you didn't hear it, you didn't see it, you won't say nothing to no one ever in your life..." All the while, Tommy sinks into his own world within himself, becoming "deaf, dumb and blind" to the rest of the world.
Captain Walker is found innocent, but Tommy is too shocked by what happened. Throughout his life, he goes on his own "Amazing Jouney" that involves many people. His Uncle Ernie who molests him, his heartless and savage cousin Kevin who treats him like a punching bag, and a prostitute called "The Gypsy" or "Acid Queen". Ultimately, Tommy is brought to a pinball arcade where he learns how to play the beautiful machines; becoming an overnight "Sensation" or "Pinball Wizard"
As Tommy grows into a famous pinball champion, his parents keep believing that there is a cure for their son. Finally, Mrs. Walker gets frustrated and fed up with the fact that he is always looking into the mirror. So she breaks it, and he is freed. After he is "freed" the press finds out about it and is basically hailed as a new messiah. Everyone falls in love with him, and want to "follow" him and become like him.
But, after they ask him how they can be more like him, he tells them that they shouldn't be more like him, he's happy that he's finally like them.--able to hear, talk and see. Enraged and confused at his answer, and the fact that he cannot provide them with exact answers on how to live their own lives, they abandon him. Tommy is left alone with his family.
Hearing himself saying "See me, feel me, touch me, heal me." He realizes that he finally has what he's always wanted, and that is to be normal. He forgives his uncle, cousin, and parents for everything that they've done, and they live on....and on