Pretty Smart is a Netflix sitcom starring Emily Osment about an intellectual aspiring novelist Chelsea, who is forced to move in with her bubbly sister Claire and her three seemingly less intelligent roommates.
Summary
Chelsea(Emily Osment), a Harvard-educated intellectual and aspiring novelist is unexpectedly dumped by her boyfriend, is forced to move in with her bubbly, carefree, not-so-intellectual West Coast sister, Claire (Olivia Macklin), and her three not-so-intellectual roommates: Grant (Gregg Sulkin), a distractingly handsome personal trainer, Solana (Cinthya Carmon), a former lawyer turned healer, and Jayden (Michael Hsu Rosen), a social media influencer.
Each of them fights their own battles. Chelsea is nowhere close to finishing her novel, Solana (aka Allison) struggles to find her identity as Solana the healer and Allison the lawyer.
Jayden, the Instagram influencer struggles to be more present in the real world. Claire struggles with her love life, as does Grant. Thus, this ragtag group of friends help each other out in a typical LA fashion.
But Chelsea has a hard time fitting in. Will she forever be a fish out of the water? or will she find friends, love and an unexpected love for the west coast?
Pretty Smart ending explained in detail:
The sisters
Ever since their parents separated, Chelsea and Claire drifted apart and since then all Claire ever wanted is to bond and connect with Chelsea. Claire sees Chelsea moving in as an opportunity to reconnect. But Chelsea is less than pleased as she, a high-brow intellectual, is a fish out of the water among these so-called LA dimwits.
Chelsea and Claire get into an argument where Claire tearfully states that she isn’t dumb. She has a job, a place to live, and a life that she loves. Meanwhile, Chelsea has nothing.
Chelsea and Claire reconcile as Chelsea reveals that she pulled away because she wanted to protect Claire from the messiness of her parents’ divorce as they always put Chelsea in the middle.
Chelsea receives a package from her ex-boyfriend Dwayne containing all her things, it was sent six days ago, while Dwayne broke up with her just a day ago. This is deduced by Solana’s lawyering skills.
This information sends Chelsea into a depressive spiral as her boyfriend made her fly out to the other side of the country with no intention of joining her there. Claire comforts Chelsea through this rough.
Chelsea and Claire end up going on a spa day and they bond. Claire reveals how she finds it difficult to let someone in but now she is finally ready. They grow closer and closer as the series progresses.
The love triangle
Grant comforts Chelsea when she is down. Grant and Claire have mutually broken up, but later Grant reveals to Chelsea that he still loves Claire. Chelsea keeps receiving life lessons from grant in the most unexpected ways. She also takes up a job at Grant’s gym.
Grant asks Chelsea to find out if Claire still has feelings for him. Chelsea is disheartened as she had begun to develop feelings for Grant. Chelsea tells her to have a heart-to-heart with Grant where Claire reveals that she only sees him as a friend. This breaks Grant’s heart but everyone reassures Claire that he’ll be fine and move on.
Chelsea wants to submit her manuscript to The Harvard Review but gets writer’s block and can’t think of an ending for her story, Grant makes her exercise and helps her break out of her writer’s block. Chelsea and Grant almost kiss as Grant reveals that he has begun to really like Chelsea.
Grant and Chelsea agree to start dating after they talk to Claire about it and it seems like Claire is happy with her new boyfriend Dave and is even meeting his parents. But after lying to Dave about a stained shirt from the time Claire and Grant met, she realises she still has feelings for Grant.
Just as Grant is about to tell Claire about him and Chelsea, Claire kisses Grant and tells him she’s broken up with Dave. Then Chelsea walks in and asks Claire if they can talk. What finally happens in this love triangle? It will only be revealed in season 2.
The gang
At Grant’s gym, Chelsea meets former high school classmate Margot Wainwright. Margot and Chelsea were always neck and neck when it came to academic honors. Margot brags to Chelsea about how she’s searching for agents for her novel. Chelsea proceeds to lie about her finished book, the deal she’s going to get, and her amazing boyfriend.
She ends up inviting Margot to dinner at her house so Grant, Solana, and Claire agree to pretend to be Chelsea’s boyfriend, book agent, and personal chef respectively. Jayden is excluded as he always goes over the top with the acting.
Jayden gatecrashes the date anyway and Margo finds out everything. But Chelsea doesn’t care that Margot is more successful than her because she has loving and caring friends and that’s what matters the most to her now.
Jayden doesn’t want Claire to come to this queer party because he feels that’s something for himself. But he is too nice to say anything about it and Claire ends up going and it makes Jayden really uncomfortable but they hash it out and it ends well.
Solana begins to practice law again. She worries about Jayden’s social media addiction and puts him on a digital cleanse.
Jayden finds out his online troll was his mother. He finally puts his foot down and establishes boundaries with his mother who pushed him career-wise at every turn of his life as she is also his manager.
He tells her he wants her to just be his mom and not his ‘momager’. They reconcile and agree that they’ll treat each other as mother and son, and it all ends well.
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