Carla Tannhauser

Dr. Carla Tannhauser (formerly Snow) is a world-renowned biomedical engineer and the CEO of Tannhauser Industries. She is the mother of Caitlin Snow and the wife of Thomas Snow.

Losing her husband and estrangement from her daughter
At some point, Carla Tannhauser met and fell in love with fellow scientist Thomas Snow. They got married and on February 28, 1989, they had a daughter, Caitlin.

In 1999, Thomas eventually came down with a mysterious condition and supposedly died. Carla is implied to have aided her husband in his disappearance, including forging his death certificate. Thomas left a letter and some documents behind for their daughter but for unknown reasons, Carla never showed them to Caitlin and retained possession of the papers in her company's archives.

Unable to face her daughter after this loss, Carla began to throw herself completely into her work, to which she and Caitlin eventually grew estranged. After Caitlin moved to Central City, Carla became increasingly disconnected with her daughter; she wasn't even aware of Caitlin's marriage to Ronnie Raymond, indicating Caitlin had no desire to invite her mother to their wedding.

Helping Caitlin with her powers
At some point prior to late 2016, Carla began conducting research in applications of cryo medicine and published a paper on it, which caught Caitlin's eye.

In November 2016, Carla received a surprise visit from Caitlin at Tannhauser Industries. Caitlin accidentally demonstrated her ice powers to her mother, asking for help understanding them. Shocked, Carla cleared her schedule for the day and called for Nigel to meet her in the bio-lab. While they ran tests, Carla had Caitlin cool down a super-heated shaft of solid tungsten, absorbing all of the energy. While they argued, Nigel called the doctor over, noting it as a potential breakthrough in their work. Following that, she took blood samples from Caitlin, hoping to test for polymorphisms. Making clear how redundant the tests were, Caitlin grew annoyed with her mother for having not asked her how she was, similar to how she was when her father died. While Dr. Tannhauser tried to defend her cold emotions, suggesting that Caitlin didn't know what it was like, she revealed that her husband had died over a year previously. A short time later, Carla walked in on Caitlin uncontrollably hurting Nigel, who had forced her to stay. She allowed her to go, apologizing for her previous estrangement. That night, she sent a video to Caitlin, explaining that the more she used her powers, the more it can affect her mental stability.

At some point between the time Cisco had took some of Caitlin's blood when she was fully mutated as Killer Frost and the day H.R. died Julian Albert visited Carla. He explained the situation with what happened to her daughter so both of them started working on a cure for Caitlin. They finished it just in time for the final showdown with Savitar and Killer Frost herself. Caitlin did take the cure later, but it did not work.

Since Caitlin lost access to her powers, Ralph Dibny did an investigation on her father. He discovered that the death certificate was a forgery, and later Cisco's visions confirmed Carla forged the death certificate. Ralph and Caitlin visited Tannhauser Industries to ask her about it, to which Carla played the victim and insisted Thomas was dead.

Personality
Carla is known to have a very estranged relationship with her daughter Caitlin Snow, due to her overbearing and somewhat controlling traits. However, Carla, like her daughter, is known to cope with her emotional trauma and stress by burying herself in her work. She did this to cope with a weird situation about her husband, but becoming frigid and shut off from Caitlin, who needed her mother to be there for her emotionally. Despite her distance and prioritizing her work over all else following her husband's death, Carla is still a good individual, although she unintentionally tended to leave everyone who worked with her in her shadow, including her daughter, who started work at S.T.A.R. Labs to make a name for herself. Carla is also somewhat hypercritical, making her a somewhat irate and difficult individual to work with. She also barely made any effort to be involved in Caitlin's adult life and sent birthday cards in the wrong months, as she sent one in April which Caitlin seemingly confirms isn't the actual month of her birth, and wasn't even aware her daughter was married until one year after son-in-law's death.

Her approach is clinical, cold, and clean, forgoing beside manner for a more analytical outlook and perspective. This is likely responsible for her esteemed career and reputation. Carla's precision was matched only by her objectivity and casually dismissive demeanor.

Carla ultimately came to an understanding after being informed of her son-in-law, Ronnie Raymond's death and how her daughter had been suffering from it. She cared enough for her daughter to cover for Caitlin's retaliation against Nigel, who was attempting to blackmail and exploit her, displaying that she was willing to cover up serious crimes and more in order to protect her daughter from the furious and jaded employee.

Abilities

 * Genius-level intellect/Great business acumen: Carla is an extremely intelligent scientist and an excellent businesswoman, as she managed to run her own research company, Tannhauser Industries, very successfully for an unknown number of years since she founded it.
 * Master scientist/Biologist: Being a highly regarded biomedical engineer, Carla is one of the world's best scientists, evidenced by the fact that she unintentionally leaves individuals who work with her in her shadow. With the help of Julian Albert, Carla was able to produce a serum to temporarily suppress Caitlin's Killer Frost persona using a sample of her daughter's meta-human DNA.
 * Expert bio cryogenic: Carla displayed an expertise in cryo science, having conducted research on applications of cryo medicine. Upon studying her daughter's cryokinesis abilities, Carla was able to give her daughter more information about her powers.
 * Skilled deceiver: Carla was able to pretend her husband was dead for years. Ralph noted she was a good liar.

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Season 5
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Season 2

 * "  (indirectly mentioned) ​

Behind the scenes

 * Interestingly enough, in the second episode of the 1990 series of The Flash, the main villain is a genetic engineer named Carl Tanner.