“Kung Fu” Recap: Search Party

The CW’s Kung Fu temporarily takes a backseat with its mythology story for Althea’s big bachelorette party. In the series’ latest installment, she tries to impress her future mom-in-law, her sis-in-law arrives from Hong Kong and keeps Nicky busy, and baba Jin leaves home after family secrets are brought to light. Here’s what happened in “Destiny.”

Hideaway | After getting the big news that her mom knew everything about her destiny, Nicky (Olivia Liang) heads to Evan’s (Gavin Stenhouse) cabin to talk about it, and ponders what would have happened to their relationship if she had known the truth. “She pushed me away from you, too. What if I had stayed?” The shirtless Evan says that Sabine is on her way there, so Nicky leaves and takes shelter at her family restaurant. Early in the morning, she gets a call from her brother Ryan that their father is gone.

Ryan (Jon Prasida) tells Nicky and their mother that their baba hasn’t picked up his phone in hours and that he had packed a bag. They decide not to share the news with their sister Althea (Shannon Dang) because she’s having a bachelorette party that night, and they don’t want to ruin it for her. “She’s got enough on her plate,” Nicky says. “Trust me. She deserves one good, fun night.”

Nicky tells her brother that she has a good idea of where their father fled to. On their way there, she tells Ryan that mama had been lying to their family for decades. She explains to him that their family has descended from a line of ancient warriors. “We’ve got Liang Daiyu’s blood in our veins,” she tells him. “Tang Dynasty’s greatest warrior. Defended her village from raiders, started female Shaolin.”

She goes on to say that according to legend, the destiny lies in one woman every generation. Ryan puts the puzzle pieces together. “You’re it,” he tells her in the car. “You’re the chosen one.” He recalls the fight on the rooftop and the air and height that she got. “You downplayed it, but I knew it was more than just three years of training.”

They arrive at Kenny’s Hideaway Motel, a place where baba Jin (Tzi Ma) had been taking the whole family for decades. Sure enough, that’s where he’s been staying. He had left Mei-Li (Kheng Hua Tan) because he felt that she had shut him out. “If I had known, I could’ve been a better parent,” he told her before leaving. “I could’ve understood. You betrayed my trust.” Ryan decides to stay with his father to catch up, while Nicky leaves to get ready for Althea’s party.

Anxious Althea | Althea is very anxious and stressed that her future mother-in-law Diana (Françoise Yip) is coming to her bachelorette party, and the bride to be wants to make a good impression after her outburst at dinner when they last met. “Time to repent and atone,” she says as she picks out an appropriate outfit that’ll please her. Dennis (Tony Chung) explains to Althea that his mother is only coming along to keep an eye on his sister Chloe (Chelsea Clark).

Nicky and Althea arrive at the Soongs’ house and is reunited with Chloe, who flew in from Hong Kong for the party. She suggests that her mom wear her necklace, but Diana feels that wearing such fancy jewelry won’t go with the vibe of Althea’s party. “That girl has been acting so strange since she got in from Hong Kong,” Diana tells them. She asks Nicky to keep an eye on Chloe because she doesn’t want to hover over her daughter.

Party Time | While making a speech about her sister, Nicky notices that Chloe is completely engrossed in her cell phone. After the toast, Chloe suggests she, her mom Diana, Nicky and Althea take a group selfie. During that process Chloe “accidentally” drops her mother’s cell in Althea’s margarita, destroying the phone. Later, Nicky follows Chloe outside of the party, where a strange man, TJ (Richard Harmon) tries to whisk her away. “I just don’t want to do this anymore,” she tells him.

Nicky tries to stop the man from taking Chloe, but she gets in the car and they drive away. Henry shows up, and Nicky gives him the info on what just went down. “Whoever he is, she’s scared of him,” she tells him. “Maybe an ex?” Henry wonders if they should tell Althea and Mrs. Soong, but Nicky wants to handle it herself so that her sister can have one good night without any issues. “We just need to find Chloe and bring her back before Mrs. Soong notices.” 

The party is completely bombing because Althea is afraid to let loose and enjoy her time. She wants to make a good impression on Diana. “You’re not having fun,” Nicky says to her sister. “No one’s having fun,” Althea replies. Nicky busts out Althea’s cheerleader outfit and the party really gets started. While the former cheerleader starts to get turnt up, Nicky takes the opportunity to talk to Diana to get more info on Chloe.

Diana says that the reason why Chloe was sent to Hong Kong was to get away from her “awful” friends, Allegra and Kendall. “They were always partying and staying out late,” Diana tells Nicky. “I got her away from those two, and not a moment too soon.” Allegra and Kendall, Nicky finds out, are both loaded, big on the social scene, and according to tabloids, arrested for breaking and entering and grand theft.

Henry returns to the party after trying to get more info from the decal on TJ’s car (with no luck), and Nicky shows him surveillance video she found of a robbery with Chloe possibly part of it. “Allegra and Kendall were both busted, but none of the other accomplices were identified,” she tells Henry. “Mrs. Soong thought she ripped Chloe from the bad crowd, but what if she’s still in this bling ring? TJ did say they had a job to do.”

They finally let Althea know that they had lost Chloe. “She left the party with some creep TJ, and she and her not-so-ex friends are up to something potentially illegal,” she tells her sister. “If I don’t leave the party now and find her, she might make a huge mistake.” Althea tells Nicky that she needs to find Chloe and get her back. “Mrs. Soong gave you one assignment,” she says. “This is not about my bachelorette party anymore, Nicky. This is about my marriage, my future with the entire Soong family.”

Truth | Back at Kenny’s Hideaway, Ryan tell his father that he doesn’t know why mama did what she did, but that she did it to protect the family, especially Nicky. “But the lie and all of her secrets,” Jin says, “I don’t think I can ever forgive that. She kept the truth from me for too long.” “Sometimes hiding the truth, keeping part of yourself secret, can trap you,” Ryan tells him. “You get used to living with a lie. Before you know it, years have passed, and it feels like no one knows the real you anymore. Even then it’s still feels safer like that.”

Jin understands what his son is telling him and apologizes for not saying more when he had the chance. “When you told us the truth and we were silent, we didn’t know how to talk about it,” Jin says to Ryan. “Do you want to know what I thought when you told us you’re gay? I thought we were blessed with such a brave son. I’m sorry if the silence made you doubt, made you think we loved you less. I only love you more.”

This is Robbery | Nicky and Henry are informed that Diana’s phone is linked up to the security cameras in her house, and find out why Chloe destroyed the cell phone. At the Soong house, the robbery is already in progress. TJ, Allegra and Kendall say their reasoning for hitting up the house and taking more than they had promised, was because they had all been caught previously, while Chloe got a trip to Hong Kong. When Chloe tries to expose the bling ring, TJ threatens that he’ll release tapes of their past heists with clear shots of her face.

Nicky and Henry finally find Chloe at the house and arrive just in time to kick her ex-friends’ asses and end their heist before it gets even worse. Chloe tells the duo that she was stuck. The first few times she did it, they barely took anything, and they did it more for the fun of it. By the time she wanted out, they had tapes of her and she didn’t know what to do except keep the secret and keep doing what they told her. Chloe worries about what her mom will say when she finds out. “She’ll be mad,” Nicky says to her, “but you know, no matter what, she loves you.”

Destiny | Nicky apologizes to her sister that the party was a bust, but Althea declares it was a success. “Are you kidding? I got drunk, I got wild, and I still bonded with Diana.” Back at home, Nicky asks her mother how she knew it was her destiny to wield the sword. Mei-Li shares the story of Nicky’s first birthday, and how she was gripping onto her aunt Mei-Xue’s earrings with her little fingers. “It was then that I knew you were destined to travel the same path she had.” Mei-Li had kept it secret because she didn’t want to lose Nicky, like she had lost her sister.

“I’m choosing this path,” Nicky says to her mother. “There have been too many coincidences, too many signs. I have a mission now: to reclaim our family’s sword. And I forgive you.” Nicky says that she knows her mother was just trying to protect her, but that she can’t protect her from this. She tells her that she wants no more intervening, no more controlling, and no more secrets. “I need you to tell me the truth about my destiny,” she says to her mom. Mei-Li pulls out an ornate-looking box and hands it over to her daughter. “This is everything I know about my sister, her travels and our bloodline. It’s yours.”

Kung Fu returns Wednesday, June 23 on The CW.