Lux Cassidy (
Britt Robertson) has been through the foster care system for almost her whole life. Cate Cassidy (
Shiri Appleby) gave birth to her at 16 but gave her up for adoption after Social Services promised her that the baby would be adopted quickly. But the baby had heart problems (ventricular septal defect) and needed countless surgeries, so she was not a desirable candidate for adoption and ended up in the foster-care system and group homes. Just before her 16th birthday, Lux petitions a court to become an
emancipated minor, but she learns that she must get signatures from her unknown birth parents. She locates her father, Nate Bazile (
Kristoffer Polaha), who operates the Open Bar inside a building his father gave him. "Baze" lives like an overgrown frat boy above the bar with two roommates: his childhood best friend Math (
Austin Basis), a high-school teacher; and Jamie (
Reggie Austin), who also works at the bar. However, even when he signs the papers, Baze discovers that he is already bonding with his newfound daughter, and realizes that she has his eyes. Baze introduces Lux to her mother Cate Cassidy, co-host of the "Morning Madness"
drive time show at
Portland radio station K-100 and Baze's former
one-night stand from high school. Lux has been listening to Cate's voice on the radio for as long as she can remember, so she feels an instant connection to the mom she's never met. Baze takes Lux to meet Cate, who is shocked and saddened to learn that Lux has grown up in foster care instead of the real adoptive home she had been promised her baby would have, and she's reluctant to commit to her daughter. Eventually Cate wants to be a part of Lux's life, and she shows that she really does care. When a judge decides that Lux isn't ready for emancipation and unexpectedly grants temporary joint custody to Baze and Cate, they agree to try to get past the awkwardness. Because of her radio-host job and suitable house, Cate is given primary custody of Lux. Ryan Thomas (
Kerr Smith), her radio-broadcast partner and fiancé, also bonds with Lux and is sometimes better able to reach her than her parents, because he's faced issues similar to hers. As the series progresses, Baze becomes more responsible and works harder to get the bar and the loft apartment in shape so it's fit for Lux to stay with him sometimes; eventually he sets aside a corner of the loft for her bedroom. Their close bond is causing slacker-esque Baze to prove that he can come through for Lux and provide support and love. As for Cate, she constantly disappoints Lux, but she does mean well, and Alice (
Erin Karpluk), producer of her radio show, often serves as her much-needed confidante. Ryan breaks up with Cate, but eventually they reconcile and the engagement is back on. He also relents a bit towards Baze after the two have drinks and Baze explains that all he is to Cate is Lux's father. However, by the end of the series, Baze and Ryan are good friends. Baze's bar is owned by his father Jack (
Robin Thomas), who considers Baze a disappointment, but softens towards him somewhat in later episodes, due to Lux's entrance in their lives. Baze himself later buys the bar. Also seen is Cate's four-times-divorced mother, who had convinced Cate to give up Lux; and Baze's level-headed, understanding mother Ellen (
Susan Hogan). Both love Lux when they meet her, though Ellen seems to have the stronger grandmotherly bond with her. Lux had been attending Longfellow High, a rough high school in Portland, but Cate enrolls her at Westmonte High, the alma mater of herself, Baze, and Math, and the institution at which Math currently teaches. At first infuriated, Lux soon adapts and makes friends, among them popular Jones Mager (
Austin Butler) who is the quarterback like her father was. Meanwhile, she wonders how friends from her old life might fit into her new one. Tasha Siviac has been her best friend since she was seven (they met at Sunnyvale, the foster-care home), and Lux hopes to stay in touch with her, her boyfriend Gavin, and Lux's own first boyfriend Bug, who has been in trouble with the law; this might imperil Lux's new life with Baze and Cate. Lux's longtime social worker Fern Redmund is instrumental in helping Cate and Baze get their parental rights reinstated and helping the three become an official family. Fern thus becomes a family friend. At various times Baze incurs Cate's wrath by sleeping with Cate's younger sister, Lux's Aunt Abby, a neurotic therapist and yoga practitioner. Baze also sleeps with Ryan's sister Paige after a drunk incident in season two. Lux meets a young man, Eric Daniels, at Baze's bar; after she goes on a date with him she discovers that he is her new teacher. The second season deals with this affair, which ends when Eric leaves town when Cate and Baze threaten to call the police if he doesn't resign his job and leave Portland; Cate and Ryan's new marriage and attempts to conceive; and Baze's relationship with coworker Emma Bradshaw who has a son, Sam. Later Tasha becomes more a part of the family's life after she strikes out on her own. Bug and Gavin disappear, Bug having left town after Lux rejected his marriage proposal. Cate miscarried her child with Ryan because of a condition she developed after having Lux. Lux being the only child she would ever have created a stronger bond between mother and daughter, and Lux finally realizes that she has a real mom who loves her and won't let anything or anyone harm her. After nearly giving in to desire, Baze breaks up with Emma after learning from Lux that Emma had had an affair with his dad. It didn't happen when Baze was going out with her, but it meant his dad cheating on his mother, and he decided that he could never be with Emma without thinking of his father. The show then fast-forwards two years to Lux delivering the commencement speech at her graduation. It is revealed that Ryan and Julia are together and have a young son from their affair, and that Baze and Cate are finally together as a couple. Math and Alice are married and expecting. Jones also kisses Lux, revealing that they end up together, and Tasha is seen happy for them. At the end, the family and friends take a photo together. ==Cast==