| “ | You both lied to me, betrayed me and shattered my life! I don't know you! I will never know you! | „ |
| ~ Vivian betraying her father. |
Vivian Volkoff is the daughter of Alexei Volkoff and the main antagonist in the second half of the fourth season of Chuck.
She is portrayed by Lauren Cohan, who also played Bela Talbot in Supernatural and September Jones and Death Race.
Personality[]
Vivian was initially introduced as an innocent, kind-hearted woman with no knowledge of her father's life as a criminal. Her personality darkened, however, when she was manipulated by her father's attorney, who told her she had been used by Chuck, the very man when who captured and imprisoned her father. Feeling betrayed by both Chuck and her father, she morphed into an evil, murderous villain, possibly an even bigger threat than her father had been.
Because of the emotional manipulation, and the influence she remained under, she saw Chuck's sympathy over what she is going through as a ploy, Vivian came to blame him for everything that happened to her father and eventually tried to kill him and everyone he cared for. Having never really known her father, she never established a real bond with him, though she wanted one, and eventually tried to murder him, making it clear that she parceled some blame for her situation out for him as well.
Biography[]
Childhood[]
Vivian was born to Alexei Volkoff and an unnamed mother and grew up under the name Vivian MacArthur on a manor in England that her father pays for. The surname "Macarthur" was used to hide her relationship with her father. She remained unaware that he was the world's most dangerous arms dealer, until she was approached by CIA operatives Sarah Walker and Chuck Bartowski.
Helping Team Bartowski[]
Vivian first appeared in "Chuck Versus the Masquerade" when Team Bartowski tracked down her down during a masquerade party in her mansion after finding out she was likely the chosen successor to Volkoff Industries following her father's arrest. Chuck and Sarah approach Vivian after she absents herself from the party to attend to the horse in the stables. Volkoff operative, Boris Kaminsky in his search for a key that would grant him access to power over the organization had killed all of Volkoff's lieutenants, and ultimately found his way to Vivian McArthur, as she has been revealed to have the key. Boris and his operatives attempt to capture her to find the key, however, Team Bartowski was in place to protect her and capture Boris. Vivian reveals to them that she is Volkoff's daughter, and has no knowledge of her father's occupation, thinking him an oil executive.
They stage a trap to lure Boris out by having Sarah impersonate Vivian on her morning ride and wearing her necklace. While the ruse draws off most of the operatives, Boris finds Vivian and tells her how her father raised her to succeed him, but he would rather do it himself. Vivian pulls a shotgun from her horse's saddle and kills him.
When Sarah returns Vivian's necklace, Vivian notices a "V" symbol on the back and realizes her necklace was the key all along. She then covertly enters her father's empty office and places the necklace on a similar symbol on his desk, thus opening a secret compartment that reveals a key card. She then surprised by the arrival of her father's attorney, Mr. Riley, who reads a letter from her father offering her his company. Vivian refuses and knocks out Riley with a vase after he tries to force her to accept at gunpoint, and then brings they key card to Chuck's team. Chuck offers her permission to visit her father in prison if she assists them on a mission of breaking into Volkoff's bank in Moscow.
Mr. Riley finds Vivian at the bank, and tells her that Chuck is the one who imprisoned her father, making Vivian question her alliance to the team. When General Beckman reneges on the deal saying she cannot see Volkoff, Vivian blames Chuck and decides he was using her, and becomes the new head of Volkoff Industries.
Revenge[]
Vivian hires an assassin to kill Chuck during "Chuck Versus the Muuurder" which resulted in the bombing of Castle and several murders of Chuck's new Intersect candidates. After the assassin is discovered and interrogated, General Beckman informs the team that Vivian Volkoff is the one behind the assassination attempt on Chuck.
When Chuck and Sarah later confront Vivian, she denies the accusation and gives them one of her the components for a deadly weapon called "the Norseman" as a faux act of trust before she was seemingly shot in a sudden attack. General Beckman temporarily brings Volkoff out of prison to assist the team in finding the other two components, but this was revealed to be a trap set up by Vivian who had not been shot but wanted her father out because she needed his presence to circumvent his security at the facility where the third component was kept. She then steals the third component and plants bombs around the base to kill the team and betrays her father and leaves him to die, too. Volkoff, who appears repentant about his role as an absentee father, shuts off the bombs with a portable EMP and is sent back to prison.
Vivian sends Riley and other Volkoff agents to steal Orion's laptop to determine the identity of "Agent X", who according to her father's notes was the only person he feared. She planned on killing Agent X to eliminate any threat to her position.
Mary Bartowski breaks into a Volkoff Industries site, trying to steal The Norseman, only to be captured by Vivian. Chuck, Sarah, and Casey break into the mine where Mary is held prisoner to rescue her, at which point Vivian is stunned to discover that Chuck is Mary's son.
They find out that Vivian is holding an auction for the Norseman and send Morgan undercover as one of the buyers. The auction is revealed, however, to be another trap, and Vivian kills the buyers with the Norseman - except Morgan, as his DNA wasn't encoded in the device, and he has to play dead. Vivian and Riley try to make their escape, but Chuck, Sarah, and Mary ram into their car to stop them. Vivian accuses of Chuck of being Agent X, but Chuck reveals that Agent X is actually her father. He explains that Volkoff was a scientist who had taken part in a CIA experiment which turned him into Alexei Volkoff. Vivian asks Riley if this true, and Riley confirms this story but twists it to lie about Chuck's father. Sarah then kills Riley when he threatened Chuck, but Vivian was able to escape and uses the Norseman to poison Sarah on the eve before her wedding to Chuck.
Redemption[]
Chuck and Hartley Winterbottom show up at Volkoff Industries begging Vivian for the antidote to the Norseman. She is stunned that she had not killed Sarah outright. Hartley explains how he willingly took part in the experiment to go undercover as Volkoff, but his cover identity took over. Vivian angrily calls out her father for making her his succession plan and throws her necklace down, but Hartley just picks it up and reveals that he named her after his grandmother. Hartley apologizes to Vivian for everything he had done and warns her that if she kills Chuck or Sarah, she will lose herself, just like he did. Vivian finally concedes and hands over the antidote to save Sarah, and provides a squad of airborne infantry as cover so Chuck can get it to her. Chuck gives the Volkoffs clean, new identities he had been planning on using himself, so they can abandon their criminal lives and start over.
Trivia[]
- Vivian is a vile Chuck villain as she crossed the Moral Event Horizon when she tried to kill her own father and came dangerously close to killing Sarah.
- Vivian is very similar to Daniel Shaw, the main antagonist of Chuck's third and fifth seasons:
- Both were allies of Team Bartowski.
- Both turned against them because they felt betrayed by the CIA having threatened someone they love:
- Shaw turned rogue because Sarah killed his wife as part of her final exam (red test) of being a spy.
- Vivian turned rogue because Chuck arrested her father (although she never really knew him and even tried to kill him at one point).
- Both have a personal vendetta against Chuck.
- Both tried to kill Sarah to hurt Chuck.
- The difference is that Vivian eventually redeemed herself by giving Chuck the antidote, while Shaw was never redeemed.