Solution to Pretty Good Chemistry

The puzzle opens with an empty periodic table (lanthanides and actinides omitted) in which, at the positions of 21 elements, are what appear to be structural formulas. As indicated at seven other element positions, in these structural formulas nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur, and cobalt are shown, but carbons are shown as unlabeled vertices, and hydrogens are omitted entirely. (Note that this is similar to the conventions for skeletal formulas, but those only omit hydrogens attached to carbons.) The formulas also contain B’s, which appear to be borons, but (as the flavortext hints) these are places where the formulas can “form a connection” (two B’s are superimposed and deleted, leaving an empty vertex). Combining the formulas in sets of two or three, without rotations, we can obtain forms of all the B vitamins (whose enumerations are given in the flavortext — the “vital, and pretty good” there also hints at B vitamins). This diagram contains the assembled B vitamins, with the B’s shown.

Each of the 21 cryptic clues must have one of those 21 elements inserted before solving. Their solutions (which are in alphabetical order) are as follows:

If one letter or number is omitted from each of these answers, they can be assembled into the names of the B vitamins, and the number of parts is always the same as the number of parts in the structural formula for the B vitamin; we can thus match up each answer with a structural formula part (reading the structural formulas left to right, as stated) with the place in the periodic table that part appears in:

Using the two elements associated with each answer (the one in its clue, and the one for its corresponding formula part), we can form a giant loop. This gives us an ordering, starting (as stated) at FOAL:

The extra letters and numbers spell out ACTRESS NAMED AFTER A B-17, which clues the answer SWOOSIE KURTZ (who was named after “The Swoose,” a B-17D Flying Fortress bomber her father flew in WWII).