'The Flash' Season 6: Caitlin Snow has been sidelined enough, it's time Frost moves to the background
Many disturbing and cataclysmic events took place during 'The Flash' Season 6. Villains like Bloodwork (Sendhil Ramamurthy), Sunshine(Natalie Sharp) and Reverse-Flash(Tom Cavanagh) poured in from every corner. And there was the multiversal Crisis, where a wave of anti-matter annihilated universes. The Earth was destroyed and reborn, thanks to the efforts of the Paragons, that include Flash (Barry Allen), Supergirl (Kara Zor-El), Batwoman (Ruby Rose), Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) and believe it or not, Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer). Sadly, Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) was not present during most of these events or was just watching from the sidelines.
For the first half of the season, Caitlin had largely disappeared as she and Killer Frost had decided to share her body. While we've seen a lot of Frost, who has helped out quite often, we've had to sacrifice a character who has been an integral part of Team Flash, since the beginning of Season 1. Since Season 3, Caitlin has been putting up quite a battle with her dual identities as Killer Frost could...well kill people. Caitlin managed to befriend Frost and over time they developed a close bond and she would transform into her when she required the ice powers. They reached an agreement and Caitlin decided that Frost can take over whenever she needed to experience life.
And now, thanks to that, we don't see much from Caitlin. Frost has dominated Danielle Panabaker's screen-time, to the extent that we couldn't even get a cohesive reaction to Barry's impending death from Caitlin, who has been his close friend Season 1. Caitlin's friendship with Barry has had its share of emotional and nerve-wracking moments, which led to many fans shipping them. The character has been slowly sidelined from Season 4 onwards, only to be phoned into scenes. This has become more pronounced in Season 6.
Caitlin didn't have much to do during the Crisis, especially when she knew that her best friend was going to sacrifice himself to save the world.
Lately, she emerged for a bit to give Barry a knock on the head when he wanted to take steroids as his powers were slowly dying. Apart from this, Caitlin's character development has stalled after her battle with Frost as well. She spouts science and technical jargon when required and that's about it. However, things might turn around a little for Caitlin in the next few episodes. Barry's Speed Force is dead and she might have the chance to help him generate an artificial one.
Fans are not entirely happy with this sidelining of the character. A fan had tweeted, "Caitlin’s storylines have not been compelling. Especially when compared how she’s forced to act in a moment of panic to save someone’s life.” THIS! this below par acting has gotten cringer over the seasons. Fix it. @dpanabaker #TheFlash.."
"Part of the reason why Caitlin’s character is so boring is because she hasn’t had any development. She doesn’t have any friends outside of star labs. We don’t know anything about her other than she has a dual personality,"tweeted a fan.
'The Flash' airs on CW, Tuesdays at 9 pm.
