In fact, throughout ' It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To,' much of the dialogue seems to hint at Ollie eventually doing just that.

There is nothing to suggest he couldn't do the same for anyone else whose continued nonexistence serves no identifiable story purpose. How much power is unclear, but at the very least, he was able to revive Barry without too much fuss. Since then, her memory has only seemed to exist when the plot needs another character to contemplate the unfair nature of life and mortality, as Barry does at his surprise party.Īs the Spectre, Oliver clearly has power over life and death. Instead, Caitlin Snow died off screen in the space between episodes, and her friends spent barely any time mourning her passing. If she had to die, she deserved to have her death mean something. RELATED: The Flash's Wally Killing Isn't a Twist, It's a Story FixĬaitlin Snow was an original and vital member of Team Flash. Unfortunately, The Flash's writers missed an opportunity to take advantage of this fluidity and allow Oliver, with his vast yet ill-defined Spectre abilities, to right an unnecessary wrong and bring back both Caitlin and Frost. Oliver's very presence exemplifies death's fluidity in the Arrowverse specifically, and in superhero stories generally.

What he fails to articulate before resurrecting himself temporarily and Barry permanently is what purpose Caitlin's unceremonious off-screen death served. Oliver understands Barry's feelings of guilt and loss, but he then explains that he died so Barry could continue on as a light for others. He poses the question to Oliver, now operating as the Spectre, and points out that, when Ollie recreated Earth-Prime, he brought back many of his previously deceased loved ones. Later in the episode, this thought follows Barry into the afterlife when Wally West (under Bloodwork's thrall) kills the Scarlet Speedster.

The wrong family book