The Flash season 4: Where does the future lie for Caitlin Snow now?
The obvious one after viewing the trailer (you can do that below if you haven’t seen it already) is simple: Is Caitlin really back to her old self? She seems, minus the cold gun, the same person who we saw in the first two seasons and a little less the person who became Killer Frost. When she left at the end of season 3, it was to find herself and figure out precisely who she was in her new form. Was she a hero, a villain, or somewhere in between? When we pick up, this Caitlin seems reasonably fine … though there are two caveats.
1. We barely see her in the preview – Hey, anyone can look like they’ve got their stuff together for a short period of time. Sustaining it, meanwhile, is the far greater challenge and there may be more of that we see.
2. Is this really Earth-1 Caitlin Snow? – Given that we’ve seen Cisco and the team uses breaches in order to pluck out a new version of Harrison Wells, we’ve got no reason to think necessarily that this is Earth-1 Caitlin. There are so many other iterations of the character that are out there! Bringing one in from another Earth resolves one of the show’s problems in having that helpful, caring Caitlin at STAR Labs, and it still allows there to be some sort of version of Killer Frost out there simultaneously. Were they constantly fluctuating between Killer Frost and Earth-1 Caitlin, there’d be some creative challenges that the writers would run into. For example, how much would the team trust her in the event that she kept turning evil? Even if she couldn’t control it, that’s a dangerous proposition.
One of the other things it should be interesting to explore one way or another here is a season full of Caitlin doing awesome career/crime-fighting stuff and not having much in the love-interest department. We thought that we were getting a break from it last season, but things eventually picked up with her and Julian. We actually liked that relationship more than the ones she had with Ronnie or “Jay” — though that may be an unpopular opinion. With Julian still out there (even if Tom Felton is not a series regular this season), there could still be a chance for something with the two of them down the road. Unless there’s some epic, incredible relationship plan being put in place for Caitlin with a new character, at this point we’d be more than fine to just put romance on the shelf for a little while.
There are plenty of other things that we know Dr. Snow and the team have to worry about — take, for example, the impending rise to power of The Thinker, a very different sort of foe than any of the others that Barry Allen has faced in the past. He may not have super-speed, but he may have some other ways of making sure that it’s negated for Barry and he can get what he wants.
What do you want to see happen with Caitlin on The Flash season 4? Sound off with some ideas in the comments! (Photo: The CW.)