The Flash season 3 will be introducing Caitlin Snow’s mother, played by Vampire Diaries alum Susan Walters.
Walters will play Dr. Carla Tannhauser, reports EW. As well as being Caitlin’s mother, Dr. Tannhauser is described as “a world class biomedical engineer and CEO of a major research company.” The role has the potential to recur.
Caitlin clearly takes after her mother in the intelligence department, but their relationship is not a close one. Caitlin believes her mother to be “cold and withholding” while Dr. Tannhauser sees Caitlin as “rebellious and ungrateful.”
This is also true of her Earth-2 doppelganger, Killer Frost; the two commiserated over their relationships with their mothers when they came face to face in season 2.
Curiously, on Earth-2, Caitlin’s poor relationship with her mother stemmed from the death of her brother — a figure we’ve never heard about on Earth-1. We know relatively little about Caitlin’s private life, though, so perhaps this will also be a parallel after all.
Walters’ roles also include Reckless, Star-Crossed and Teen Wolf.
We’ve heard relatively little about Caitlin’s story in season 3 — and she wasn’t in the Comic-Con trailer. We do know, however, that in the Flashpoint timeline that Cisco will be rich and famous, Barry will be a stranger to the Wests, and Wally will be Kid Flash.
Whether we’ll explore Caitlin’s relationship with her mother in both timelines that have been set up for season 3 remains to be seen. However, after two seasons I’m happy to see Caitlin apparently getting a story not related to her love life.
The Flash season 3 premieres Tuesday, October 4 at 8:00 p.m. ET on The CW.