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Vivian McArthur Volkoff

Vivian Volkoff

Seasons: Season 4
Portrayed by: Lauren Cohan
Status: Hiding
Occupation: Heir to Volkoff Industries (former)
Aliases: Vivian McArthur
Relatives: Hartley Winterbottom (father)
Mrs. Winterbottom (paternal grandmother)
Relationships: Chuck Bartowski (former nemesis)
Residence: Somerset, England (Former)
Appearances: Chuck Versus the Masquerade
Chuck Versus the First Bank of Evil
Chuck Versus the Family Volkoff
Chuck Versus the Last Details
Chuck Versus the Cliffhanger
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I have spent my whole life hiding, Charles, it ends today.
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Vivian McArthur Winterbottom, grew up  as Vivian MacArthur, the secret daughter of Alexei Volkoff. She served as the secondary antagonist of Season Four. She is portrayed by Lauren Cohan.

Vivian first appeared in the Season Four episode, Chuck Versus the Masquerade. She is her father's heir, and he kept her at boarding schools most of her life. She was shooting skeet at 7, a black belt at 13 and studied at the London School of Economics graduating with fluency in five languages.

Until her appearance in Chuck Versus the Masquerade, Vivian had never been mentioned. She was kept a secret from her father's organization and lived under the name MacArthur. Only a select few people at Volkoff Industries seem to know of her, but it allowed Boris Kaminsky to track her.

She tells Chuck that her father has never been there, Volkoff meet with her once every decade, seeing her for only ten minutes. She also reveals that her father lied to her for her whole life, she believed him to be an oil company executive. Unbeknownst to her, Volkoff had been grooming her for becoming his successor in running his organization.

Volkoff operative, Boris Kaminsky, opens the episode with a search for a key that would grant him access to power over the organization. Upon killing all of Volkoff's lieutenants, he finds his way to a woman named Vivian MacArthur, as she has been revealed to have the key. Boris, and several other former Volkoff Industries operatives, attempt to capture her, however, Team Bartowski beat them to her, and they hoped to use her and capture Boris. She surprises them by explaining she is Volkoff's daughter, and has no knowledge of her father's occupation prior to the team finding her.

During her debrief, she seems lost and confused, Chuck sympathizes with her, and tells her to take this opportunity to choose to run her own life. He once had an unexpected opportunity land in his lap, and it made his life over in a way that makes him happy, she can do the same. When Chuck, Sarah, and Casey help her bait Boris, he holds her at gunpoint while the team are dispatching the rest of his unit.

Boris points out that her father had been grooming her into being his successor, but she is nothing more than a "weak, indecisive little girl." This provokes her, and she pulls shotgun from the saddle scabbard, and fires at Boris, point-blank, demonstrating that her father's subtle training may well have had more effect than anticipated. The team tell her she had no choice, pointing out her action was purely self defense. Vivian now suspects her necklace is the key, but she keeps it a secret from Team Bartowski.

Afterward, she is seen visiting Volkoff Industries Headquarters, in her father's office. She places the locket into a part of Volkoff's desk, which unlocks a secret safe, revealing a bank card. Her father's lawyer, Mr. Riley (Ray Wise) then appears in the office, and tells her to accept the position as Volkoff's successor. She refuses, and knocks the man unconscious after he threatens her, demanding she rethink her decision.

417-FirstBankofEvil

Sarah, Vivian, and Chuck in Castle

She seeks help from Team Bartowski. Beckman identifies the bank account card as from the First Bank of Macau; a notorious bank with numerous criminal ties. With the help of Vivian, the team are able to infiltrate the bank for the first time in CIA history. She makes her way through the bank's vault, and accesses her father's deposit box. The box held nothing more than various newspaper headlines of her achievements and childhood photos. Chuck, however, flashed on a server located elsewhere in the bank, and they determined they had to return to the bank later.

Chuck said he would try to get her a chance to see her father in prison for her assistance in gaining access to the bank. She agrees and they return to Macau. Chuck and Sarah create a distraction at the lobby, pretending to be bank robbers in order for Vivian to successfully apply a hack through the bank's servers. Just as she is ready to leave the vault, Mr. Riley returns. He reveals Chuck was the man who captured and imprisoned her father. She says that father is a criminal. Riley tells her that Chuck is only pretending to connect with her in order to get her to help them, and that they would never really let her meet with her father. Before he leaves, he gives her his calling card and returns her necklace.

After finishing the mission, Beckman refuses to let Vivian see her father, citing the risks are far too great. Distressed, Chuck tries to tell Vivian that he did his best to help her, but she already expected this disappointment, and simply thanks him for his honesty. Later Chuck tries to contact her to tell her that he will still try to help her, but she refuses to answer his call. She is seen in a car sitting beside Riley, before she tells him that she is ready to look into her father's secrets.

It is revealed in Chuck Versus the Muuurder that Vivian hires Damien to assassinate Chuck at Castle, but he fails and is later arrested. After receiving the Agent X files from Orion's Laptop in Chuck Versus Agent X, Vivian believes Chuck to be Agent X, who her father always considered the one real threat to Volkoff Industries. In Chuck Versus the Family Volkoff, she fakes an attack on herself during a meeting with Chuck's team. She then sets them up to deliver the Norseman components to her. When they must involve her father, she traps the team, and her father, in a vault then sets it to explode, apparently blaming them for having lied to and manipulated her. In Chuck Versus the Last Details Vivian, having rebuilt the Norseman, calls Chuck during his rehearsal dinner to announce her revenge, right before targeting Sarah, who then collapses and is left near death.

In Chuck Versus the Cliffhanger, Vivian meets her father after he was returned to his real identity, Hartley Winterbottom. She discovers her father's true personality, that he isn't the world's most evil arms dealer, but a genuinely caring person, and his best friend's son is Chuck. Chuck offers Vivian and her father new identities to start a new life in exchange for the antidote to the Norseman. Hartley knows the identities were meant for him and Sarah, but Chuck insists he will do anything to save her. He finally reaches Vivian, who agrees to help Chuck and correct a mistake of her own, then flees with her father for a new life, leaving the Volkoff Industries fortune to the newly-wed Bartowskis.

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