‘The Flash’ Season 3 Star Danielle Panabaker Explains Why Caitlin Is Hiding Her Powers From The Team

Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) has been close friends with Barry (Grant Gustin), Cisco (Carlos Valdes) and the rest of Team Flash for a long time now, but why is she hiding her newfound powers from them?

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Panabaker explained why Caitlin has not yet told anyone from the team that she’s developing the same powers as her Earth-2 doppelgänger Killer Frost.

“After hearing [about], and briefly meeting, Killer Frost at the end of Season 2, I think she’s terrified that could be her future,” Panabaker said of Caitlin. “She said to Cisco at the end of last season, ‘I’m scared, I don’t want to become her,’ as she was suffering from her PTSD after everything with Zoom [Teddy Sears]. It is something that she’s very afraid of and cognizant of and trying to avoid.”

Although Caitlin is currently being secretive about her powers, Panabaker said that she totally gets her character’s decision. “I understand why she would want to keep this to herself as she started to figure it out, but hopefully she learns how to ask for help from those who we’ve seen in the past are fantastic at helping others.”

Since Caitlin is not ready to reveal her secret to Team Flash yet, the resident bio-engineer at S.T.A.R. Labs —as revealed in the synopsis for next week’s episode — is going to pay her mom, Dr. Carla Tannhauser (Susan Walters), a visit in hopes that the well-known biomedical researcher can help her control her powers much better. The reunion between the two, however, becomes a disaster when Dr. Tannhauser begins to treat Caitlin as a test subject. Caitlin grows cold toward her mom and eventually brings up previous squabbles between them.

Executive producer Todd Helbing told Entertainment Weekly last month that viewers will soon discover what exactly caused the rift between the Caitlin and her mom. “You’ve heard snippets throughout the show so far of how her mom is pretty cold,” Helbing said. “When you meet her, you’ll understand exactly what Caitlin has been talking about and exactly how their dynamic works. You can see how that’s had a long-term effect on Caitlin.”

“The Flash” Season 3, Episode 5, entitled “Monster,” airs on Tuesday, Nov. 1, at 8 p.m. on The CW.