Jin Shen

**Jin Shen** is Nicky Shen's father. He and his wife, Mei-Li, are restaurateurs whose secrets threaten to destroy their lives just as they deal with the return of their estranged daughter.

## Biography

### Pilot

Nicky returns to her home and estranged family in San Francisco’s Chinatown where her father Jin welcomes her with open arms. Unfortunately, Nicky is quick to notice that Jin is sporting a black eye.

While Nicky storms out, Jin convinces his daughter not to run away to parts unknown again.

Nicky's soul-searching comes to an abrupt end when she discovers Jin roughed up by a local mobster in a shakedown at his family restaurant.

After taking Jin to the hospital to recover, Nicky approaches Ryan at his clinic and reconciles with him over a game of ping-pong.

### Silence

Althea, Ryan, Mei-Li, and Jin cook Nicky a welcome home breakfast and surprise Nicky with their cheerfulness. All four immediately demand Nicky’s time. Unfortunately, the smell of smoke in the kitchen as the chicken burns. She’s then transported to the night Pei-Ling Zhang died, and she awakens terrified in her own bed. As it turns out, it was all a dream, including the nice breakfast.

Back at the house, everyone is rushing around for wedding planning as Ryan tells Nicky he needs her to help out with Jin more now that she’s home.

At the restaurant, Jin and Mei-Li argue over Nicky. Mei-Li is worried she’ll leave them again while Jin is hopeful she’s home for good.

As Nicky goes to leave the restaurant, Jin sees her. He excitedly shows her that he saved a picture of their last game night together so they can pick up where they left off. They make a date for 8 p.m. as she leaves to meet Henry Yan.

At home that night, Nicky realizes she missed her game with her dad. He’s asleep on the couch, and her mom watches as Nicky puts a blanket over him. Mei-Li chastises her, saying Jin waited up for her. She also says he waited for her after she left, never losing hope she’d be back one day. Mei-Li then confronts her daughter by saying how she thinks Nicky doesn’t really want to be back. In the end, she just had nowhere else to go.

The next morning, Nicky surprises Jin with a game. Mei-Li comes down the stairs to hear Nicky say she’s not going anywhere. Remembering Ryan asking her father to go for a check-up, Nicky makes their game conditional on him going for a check-up at the clinic.

### Sanctuary

As Jin and Mei-Li buy groceries for the family restaurant somewhere in San Francisco, they observe that hate crimes targeting Asian Americans are on the rise. Nicky and Henry run into their own troubling incident in Chinatown, with an unarmed Black teenager named Andre shot by the police after being mistaken for a robber, dying the next day from his wounds. In the wake of protests against police brutality across the neighborhood, Mei-Li is horrified when the restaurant's storefront is vandalized. While Nicky and Jin initially give activists passing by bottled water, the protests turn chaotic when riot police are deployed, employing tear gas to disperse the crowd.

### Rage

At the Shen’s restaurant, Nicki gets texts from Henry saying he’s set up a meeting between them and Randall for noon at the apothecary. Mei-Li then walks in and proceeds to comment on how Nicky’s been happy before not-so-subtly inquiring about Henry. Nicky deflects and leaves. Jin walks in and tells Mei-Li he wants to surprise her with a date night.

Unfortunately, Nicky bumps into Evan, who expresses surprise at seeing her at an event like the gala. Not long after that awkward encounter, the gang runs into Jin and Mei-Li, who the Soongs gave their extra tickets to. Ryan tries to distract them with an art exhibit, but they all get roped in.

Jin asks Mei-Li why she was interrogating Henry. Mei-Li says she’s heard things around town about Henry’s past and his family. Jin reminds her that whatever happened in the past, Henry’s pulled himself up by his bootstraps and turned his behavior around. Jin then mentions how Henry reminds him of himself.

As she’s waving goodbye to Jin, she sees that Zhilan is talking to him.

Zhilan’s posing as Charlotte Yang, a curator from the Beijing national museum. The two have a thinly veiled conversation about the dagger, in which Zhilan reveals she hired the men that Nicky and Henry fought. As Jin walks away, Zhilan threatens Nicky’s parents and Henry before patting Nicky down and taking the dagger.

### Destiny

At home, Jin tells Mei-Li that she betrayed his trust and made him a worse parent due to his lack of understanding of Nicky. Later, Ryan calls Nicky in a panic to reveal that Jin has packed a bag and left the house.

When Nicky comes home, she ignores Mei-Li. She then tells Ryan what’s been going on as she accuses Mei-Li of “nuking” her marriage to their dad. They all choose not to tell Althea as tonight is her bachelorette party. Ryan and Nicky leave to find Jin, with Mei-Li staying back.

In the car, Nicky and Ryan talk about what Mei-Li revealed. Ryan believes she’s truly the chosen one, but Nicky’s not as confident. She says that she just wants to make sure Jin is okay first, and everything else is secondary.

They find Jin at a motel the family went to every summer, and he tells them he’s not going home. The three gather over dinner, with Ryan telling Nicky she should go back to the city for Althea’s party. She wants to stay, but Ryan tells her he took the day off and he can stay with Jin.

Back at the motel, Ryan tries to plead Mei-Li’s case to Jin. But Jin says Mei-Li kept the secret for far too long. Ryan says sometimes you just get used to living with the lie after a while. He gets up to call Mei-Li as Jin stares at the TV.

Ryan comes back inside, and Jin turns to him. He apologizes for not saying more when Ryan came out and not making his support clear. Jin asks if Ryan knows what Jin thought at the time, and when Ryan says no, Jin says, “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. We loved you more.” Ryan sobs as Jin asks him if he is happy. Ryan says he is, and Jin sighs in relief. He asks if Ryan is dating anyone, and Ryan reveals he’s with Joe. Jin tells him Joe seems like a good man, and that Ryan deserves it.

At the party, Henry and Nicky fill Althea in. Ryan arrives and immediately starts drinking as Althea remarks, “That bad?” Ryan tells them Jin isn’t ready to come home yet. Nicky goes to the motel, telling Jin it’s time to come home. She tells him she’s mad too, but she knows Mei-Li is hurting as well. Jin reveals that when Nicky was in the Yunnan Province in China, Mei-Li sent him to find her. He found her without Nicky knowing. When he saw how at ease she was in the monastery, he left her there without telling Mei-Li. He realized she finally belonged after talking with Pei-Ling Zhang. He says she was the real her, beautiful and powerful.

Back at home the next day, Mei-Li and Nicky talk. Nicky lets her know Jin is coming home.

### Isolation

At the restaurant, Mei-Li and Jin awkwardly reunite. Mei-Li asks if they should talk, and Jin says he needs time as he preps for the lunch rush.

She asks Mei-Li to tell her about Mei-Xue and what she was really like. It convinces Duke as Mei-Li calls Mei-Xue her hero. She cries, and Jin comforts her.

Later, Jin and Mei-Li make up.

### Choice

While Mei-Li is in the kitchen cooking her mother’s plum sauce when Jin comes in. Mei-Li wants to add it to the menu as a tribute to Mei-Xue because it was her favorite. Jin suggests Mei-Li takes over the cooking and they revamp the menu while he moves to work the front of the restaurant, as it will make her happy. She agrees.

Joe and Ryan arrive at Harmony Dumplings. Jin greets them and brings them back to meet Mei-Li in the kitchen. Jin tells them about their new plans to change things up and Joe offers to help Jin with the restaurant’s new logo in exchange for dumplings.