Vivian McArthur Volkoff

Vivian Volkoff

Seasons:Season 4
Portrayed by:Lauren Cohan
Status: Missing
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"
I have spent my whole life hiding, Charles, it ends today.

Vivian McArthur Winterbottom, grew up  as Vivian McArthur, the daughter of MI6 scientist Hartley Winterbottom, who during most of her life lived under the assumed identity of Alexei Volkoff. She served as the secondary antagonist of Season Four, and 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 5 languages.

Until her appearance in "Chuck Versus the Masquerade" Vivian was an unseen, unmentioned character. She was kept a secret from her father's organization and lived under the name McArthur. 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 her whole life into becoming his successor in running his organization.

In "Chuck Versus the Masquerade", Volkoff operative Boris Kaminsky searches 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 McArthur, as she has been revealed to have the key. Boris and several other former Volkoff Industries operatives attempt to capture her to find the key, however, Team Bartowski beat them to her, thinking she was the last of Alexei Volkoff's successors, and the hoped to protect her and capture Boris. She reveals to them that 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 run her own life. He 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, Boris holds her at gunpoint when 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 into pulling out a shotgun from the saddle scabbard, and she fires at Boris, point-blank. The team comfort her, 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 the sealed up Volkoff Industries Headquarters, in her father's office. She places the locket into a part of Volkoff's desk, which unlocks a secret part of his office, revealing a bank account card. Discovering her father's bank account, her father's lawyer Mr. Riley (Ray Wise) visits her in the office and tells her to accept the position as Volkoff's successor. She refuses the power, and knocks the man unconscious after he threatens her to rethink her decision. She seeks help from Team Bartowski regarding this. Beckman identifies the bank account card as an account number from the First Bank of Macau; a notorious criminal funding bank. 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. The deposit revealed nothing more than various newspaper headlines of her achievements and childhood photos. Chuck however flashed on a server located somewhere else in the bank, therefore they had to return to the bank later.

Vivian has Chuck promise her that she will get a chance to see her father in prison in exchange for helping the CIA hack into the servers Chuck found in the First Bank of Macau. She agrees and they return to the bank. Chuck and Sarah create a distraction at the lobby, pretending to be bank robbers in order for Vivian to successfully hack through the bank's servers. Just as she is ready to leave the vault, Mr. Riley returns. He asks her to stop helping the CIA, revealing Chuck was the one who imprisoned her father. She argues, saying 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. She then goes back to the lobby of the bank and leaves with the team.

After finishing the mission, Beckman refuses to let Vivian see her father as the risks are far too great. A devastated Chuck tries to tell Vivian that he did his best to help her, but she already expected this 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 is angry with Chuck for arresting her father and the belief that he manipulated her. She hires Damien (Mousa Kraish) to assassinate Chuck at Castle. Damien 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 Last Details" Vivian, having rebuilt the Norseman components that had been taken by Chuck and Sarah, 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 had 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 father, 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, Iridium 6. Hartley knows the identities were meant for him and Sarah, but Chuck insists he'd do anything to save her. As a result, he fianlly reaches Vivian who agrees to help Chuck and correct a mistake of her own, then flees with her father, leaving the Volkoff Industries fortune to the newly-wed Bartowskis.
