Flash Season 7 Theory: Cecile's Powers Are Unlocked By Post-Crisis Villain - Screen Rant

The first trailer for The Flash season 7 teased a power upgrade for empathic attorney Cecile Horton. This apparently came bout because of a villain, The Top, who seems to have had her own powers changed following the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event.

Played by Danielle Nicolet, Cecile Horton has been a part of The Flash since the beginning, first appearing in The Flash season 1, episode 19, "Who is Harrison Wells?" Originally presented as the District Attorney of Central City, Cecile came to bond with Police Detective Joe West, as the two worked together to adjust how their respective offices would handle the new problems facing prosecutors and police, as metahuman crime became a more serious problem in Central City. The two fell in love and Cecile became a regular member of the ensemble in The Flash season 4, when she and Joe had a child together.

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The stress of the pregnancy triggered Cecile's latent metahuman powers, at first allowing her to communicate simple emotions to her daughter while she was still in the womb, and vice versa. However, by the end of season 4, Cecile was capable of acting as a telepathic conduit and played a critical role in Team Flash stopping The Thinker in The Flash's season 4 finale. Since that time, Cecile's powers have been portrayed as being more empathic than telepathic. Indeed, her sense of empathy for others became so strong that she resigned her position as District Attorney to go into private practice, specializing in the defense of metahuman criminals, because she could no longer work to convict people her powers told her were innocent or earnest about seeking redemption.

Flash Season 7 Trailer Shows Cecile Gaining New Powers

The Flash Season 7 Cecile Horton Danielle Nicolet

Cecile's powers have been a topic of controversy for some fans of The Flash. Some have complained about Cecile's powers being used as a deus ex machina and precisely what she can and can't do being largely dependent upon the demands of a particular episode. For instance, Cecile's used her empathy throughout The Flash season 5 to act as an early-warning system for tracking the villain Cicada, whose intense hatred of metahumans she could feel from several blocks away. Yet during The Flash season 6, Cecile's powers completely failed to detect anything amiss regarding the Mirror World duplicate of Iris West-Allen, despite Joe West, Wally West and Barry Allen all sensing there was something not quite right about the fake Iris without any kind of empathic powers.

The first trailer for The Flash season 7 seems to address this issue, with it being suggested that the inconsistencies in Cecile's powers and power levels have been due to her holding back. This thesis is implied by a blonde woman in the trailer, who is not identified by name but is recognizable to fans of The Flash as Rosa Dillon, aka The Top. Dillon tells Cecile that she is an empath as well, just before her eyes flash green-yellow. Cecile's eyes flash the same way, and she asks what The Top just did to her. The Top's answer is delivered through a voice-over, as the trailer cuts to an image of The Top in a new costume. The Top tells Cecile to "imagine what you'd become if you weren't so afraid."

Rosa Dillon Powers & Abilities Explained

The Flash Season 3 Ashley Rickards as The Top Rosa Dillon

Played by Ashley Rickards, Rosa Dillon first appeared in The Flash season 3, episode 4, "The New Rogues". A career criminal, Dillon became romantically involved with fellow crook Sam Scudder. Both Dillon and Scudder were part of a gang run by Leonard Snart, in the days before he became Captain Cold. On the same night that STAR Labs' particle accelerator exploded, Snart confronted Scudder and Dillon over their defiance of his orders to lay low, after he discovered the two had been flashing their stolen cash around Central City. During the fight which followed, both Scudder and Dillon were hit by the energy wave that empowered many Central City citizens. In the case of Rosa Dillon, she developed the power to induce vertigo in anyone she looked at, causing them to see the world as if it was spinning in a circle around them. This prompted Cisco Ramon to dub her The Top, in honor of the spinning toy.

Rosa Dillon is notable as one of the many Arrowverse characters who was adapted from a male character in the classic The Flash comics. The first Top was a man named Roscoe Dillon, who first appeared in The Flash #122 in August 1961. Like many members of the Rogues' Gallery, Dillon was a career criminal from a broken home, whose few happy childhood memories came from his one toy; a green-and-yellow top. At first Dillon used a variety of top-based weapons and tools, but he later discovered that he possessed the strange ability to deflect bullets when he spun around. He also found that his intelligence became enhanced as the blood rushed to his head while he spun around.

Eventually Dillon discovered that he was a metahuman and was able to utilize his powers without spinning. However, Dillon could telekinetically move himself as quickly as The Flash could run when he did spin around. What truly made Dillon dangerous, however, was that his mind became so powerful that his consciousness was able to survive after his death and spin into other bodies. His spirit was able to possess the body of Barry Allen's father, Dr. Henry Allen, and teamed with the Golden Glider to kill The Flash, so that he could take over his body instead. Thankfully, the plan was thwarted, but Dillon's mind continued to pop up in new bodies, seeking The Flash's destruction.

A retcon around the time of the Identity Crisis miniseries made Roscoe Dillon even more dangerous. The Top's "mind-over-matter" power was redefined to make him fully telepathic and capable of causing other people to experience vertigo, as well as telekinetic and super-intelligent. This was revealed in a storyline which ran in The Flash 214-216, during which Barry Allen attempted to reform The Top by having the magician Zatanna use her magic to make Roscoe Dillon want to be a good person. Unfortunately, the magical programming conflicted with Dillon's undiagnosed mental disorder, pushing the conflicted criminal over the edge. He went on to use his telepathy to try and make the rest of the Rogues' Gallery reform as well; an explanation for why so many of The Flash's enemies had tried to reform themselves over the years.

How The Top Gets Changed Post-Crisis

Based on the trailer for The Flash season 7, it seems that the show is drawing upon the comics in this regard and that Rosa Dillon has developed her powers to become far more dangerous, as an empath/telepath. This is likely the result of reality being rewritten by Crisis on Infinite Earths, which caused many formerly dead villains to return to life and some villains to have their powers completely changed.

In fact, The Top was specifically singled out in the first episode of The Flash following Crisis on Infinite Earths, as Cisco Ramon unveiled the Who's Who List Of Supervillains he had compiled. Coupled with a quick image of The Top in a new costume where she's wearing the trademark pin of the Black Hole, and it seems certain that Rosa Dillon will be coming back with a new spin in The Flash season 7. Hopefully, Cecile Horton will prove to be her match, though why The Top would choose to empower her is anyone's guess.

Next: What To Expect From The Flash Season 7

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Matt Morrison (1287 Articles Published)

Matt Morrison has been writing about comics since before the word "blogging" was coined. He got his start writing for the legendary DC Comics digital fanzine Fanzing, before receiving his own column, The Mount. Since then he has gone on to write for over a dozen websites, including 411 Mania, Comics Nexus and The Cult of Nobody. He holds both an MS in Information Science from the University of North Texas and a BFA from the University of Texas at Arlington. Known as a font of comic book history trivia, he has delivered lectures on the history of American Comic Books, Japanese Manga and Cosplay at over a dozen conventions and served as an Expert In-Residence for a course on Graphic Novels for Librarians at the University of North Texas. In addition to his work for Screen Rant, Matt is currently the Managing Editor of Kabooooom.com, the house critic of Explore The Multiverse and writes reviews for No Flying, No Tights – a graphic literature and anime review site aimed at teachers and librarians. He also maintains a personal blog – My Geeky Geeky Ways – which hosts his extensive episode guide for the television series making up The Arrowverse as well as his comedic Let’s Play videos. What little spare time he has is devoted towards acting, role-playing, movie-riffing and sarcasm. You can follow his adventures on Twitter, @GeekyGeekyWays.