Of all of the difficult things that Team Flash faced in Season 8, there is one that stands out: the death of Frost (Danielle Panabaker). The beloved hero was killed when she transformed herself into the perfect weapon by becoming Hell Frost to take on Deathstorm (Robbie Amell). While she did save the day, her death was a major blow to the team and for her sister, Caitlin (Panabaker), it’s a loss she’s not quite been able to get over. Recent episodes have seen Caitlin working with Mark (Jon Cor) to try to bring Frost back to life by accessing her residual presence within Caitlin and then giving her a new body. Now, in the Season 8 finale, “Negative, Part Two”, there’s a major development with those efforts — and showrunner Eric Wallace teases that fans should “be prepared” for that comes next.
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Warning: spoilers for the Season 8 finale of The Flash, “Negative, Part Two”, below.
Near the end of the episode, viewers are taken to check in with the efforts to bring back Frost. In the penultimate episode, “Negative, Part One”, Caitlin put herself inside a cryo-pod type chamber with the intent of using it to bring Frost back within her own psyche. But this week, there’s some sort of malfunction with the pod and Mark opens it up. Someone is inside, but it’s neither Frost nor Caitlin. Viewers never see exactly what Mark sees, but when he asks who she is, she answers “A friend. I think.” It’s quite a shocking turn and one that leaves us asking who is in the pod. According to Wallace, he can’t give anything away, but fans can rest assured it is not Frost — but it also might not be Caitlin, either.
“I don’t think you have to be scared because obviously Danielle Panabaker is a season regular next year on The Flash,” Wallace told ComicBook.com. “What we really want to get across is, Frost isn’t coming out of that pod. So, be prepared because Danielle Panabaker is coming out of that pod, but who will she be? It won’t be Frost. It might be Caitlin… or it might not.”
He added, “I’ll say this. When I pitched my idea to Danielle six or seven months ago, I said, ‘Hey, you’re going to go into this tube and blank comes out. And you will play blank.’ She want ‘Oh, we’ve never done this before. This is awesome. Oh, I can’t wait.’ So, her excitement was great. Quite frankly, I was relieved. I was like, ‘Am I going too far? Is this too crazy?’ But she’s so excited for this story for her character next year. I think the audience is going to have a blast with it, and don’t be afraid. I think it’s going to be super fun.”
The reassurance that Frost is truly gone backs up what Panabaker told us earlier this season. Ahead of “Death Falls” she confirmed that she wanted Frost’s death to be real and not a fake out.
“This was actually something that Eric had pitched to me last summer,” Panabaker said. “I think right around the time we were wrapping up Season 7, and he was throwing ideas around for Season 8. My biggest concern was that I didn’t want it to be a fake out. I wanted it to be a real death. It didn’t seem fair to have this be a tease. So, I’ve known the whole season.”
Now, we just have to wait to see who or what comes out of that pod.
The Flash will return for Season 9 in 2023.
