Caitlin Snow has certainly had a long, unexpected, and seemingly unplanned journey over these five years on The Flash. And despite being one of my favorite characters, there’s a major issue with her powers.

Caitlin Snow’s development on The Flash has been… well, iffy, at best. While she’s a great character and one of my favorites, there are clear and unavoidable issues due to the inconsistency of the show’s writing since she began to explore her powers after Flashpoint. And while it’s understandable why the writers chose the path they did for introducing Killer Frost to Earth-1, it’s created other problems.

With “Crisis on Infinite Earths” approaching and offering a chance to rectify some of the universe’s issues and mistakes, I hope The Flash writers take this opportunity to clear up any confusion about Caitlin Snow and Killer Frost and merge them together, in one way or another, so Caitlin actually has her powers without needing the dual personality/other person inside of her who can actually use the powers when she cannot.

The inconsistency of Caitlin Snow and Killer Frost

I have written about this topic a bit before, but given the story that The Flash season 6 is telling, the reality of Caitlin and Frost has become even more complicated.

Since The Flash season 6, episode 1, we’ve seen Killer Frost taking the opportunity to experience life, which she hasn’t been able to do for around three decades of existing within Caitlin’s body.

In order for Frost’s chance at life to come to fruition, Caitlin has had to take the backseat in her own body. Over four episodes, we’ve seen one glimpse of her in a scene on The Flash season 6, episode 5, but based on the photo below from The Flash season 6, episode 6, it doesn’t seem like she will be reappearing again until the crossover event (if that, honestly).

For Frost to have her own life, Caitlin has to lose hers, and it’s her body that’s in question. She’s being put second to Frost when one of her best friends is set to die in just a few weeks, and we’ve yet to see Caitlin deal with Barry’s news.

While Barry’s death is irrelevant to this post, it further introduces one of the biggest problems with the current situation: How are two people supposed to live happy, fulfilled lives out of one body?

Killer Frost is more than a personality

Looking back, it seems clear that Killer Frost was originally thought of to be another personality. Earth-2 Killer Frost was just a dark, cold version of Caitlin (with powers, of course) and continued to state that she hated to be called Caitlin.

Throughout The Flash season 3, the more Caitlin’s powers grew, the more her personality shifted toward her dark side. By the end of the season, it seemed like Caitlin had become one with her powers and stopped fighting them, but also managed to get hold of the darkness within her to be, well, a normal meta-human.

For some reason (I know the reason), this was retconned for The Flash season 4 onward to make Killer Frost a separate entity in Caitlin’s body with her own thoughts and feelings. From the introduction of the story, it was clear Killer Frost was always meant to be at least an anti-hero, if not a full-blown villain, which is the reason they made Frost her own person.

The writers have been adamant about Caitlin remaining good and on Team Flash since the series began. There was no way they were going to jeopardize that by having her turn into an anti-hero in order to keep her on the team, so they wrote around it, creating this existential mess.

Merging the two (or simply fixing the issue)

Though even I don’t know exactly how this would work, “Crisis on Infinite Earths” poses a unique opportunity for the entire Arrow-verse to fix several of the mistakes they’ve made along the way.

For The Flash, one of their biggest mistakes remains making Frost and Caitlin two individual characters. On The Flash season 3, Caitlin could use her powers herself, and she didn’t need to call out Killer Frost. They’ve become dependent on each other, which is finally breaking (for Frost) as she learns to live a life full of consequences for her actions.

Personally, I’d love to see Caitlin Snow from season 3 return with control of her powers. Get rid of the thing that apparently turned her evil if she used them and just make her a little darker of a person. Or don’t, but still have just Caitlin Snow remain with her abilities. There’s no way these two people can live full lives out of one body; it’s unsustainable for life and for the show.

There’s always been a drastic imbalance of power between Caitlin and Frost, and now we’re seeing it in the spotlight, which is making it hard for Frost to grow on anyone because Caitlin has just disappeared. Caitlin’s life shouldn’t go away because Frost wants one because it’s her body.

At this point, “Crisis on Infinite Earths” seems like the last chance to save Caitlin’s story. As sad as it would be to lose Frost, it would make much more sense and be more sustainable to have Caitlin and Frost come together in some way, so there’s only one person left with powers.

The Flash seasons 6 airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW!