Despite all the faults that rightfully earned 'The Flash' to receive the criticism and beatdowns it had as the punching bag it's become in recent seasons of the shows airing, one god awful trait is sadly what has become more prominent in the show, or should I say, "who".
Every show possesses side characters, even if those shows are ensemble groups of people acting as the main characters, there are still highlighed cast members that are generally more focused on leaving the rest as more "secondary characters". This is most notable in a show like 'The Flash', as, at one point, the show's side character roster was a favored quartet in its early run.
Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow, and Harrison Wells (Wellsobard) -- this cast of side characters was really damn small in the shows first season! And likeable, might I add. Of course, as does the show in distinguishable aspects, these things experience change as the series continues to grow; new cast members, leaving cast members.. there is change in this industry nonetheless.
However, one character who has become unforgivable in recent seasons of 'The Flash'... One character that takes any hope you had for an episode of the show to be "good", and throws it all away thanks to their presence... One character that single-handedly should not have ever been a "core staple" of the show... Cecile. Horton.
I hate this character so much -- she has proven in recent seasons that sometimes change cannot be good. Cecile Horton started off as a character with very limited contributions to 'The Flash', which was pretty much next to nothing in the grand scheme of things. She served as Disctrict Attorney for The Central City Police Department, and in season one her role was so minimal, that you need to google which episode she starred in back then, as opposed to now knowing she appears in every second.
Cecile was never held in such high regard by the writers until season 4, when she developed her psychic meta abilities upon her pregnancy, for reasons I still cannot comprehend. In season 5, she was bumped to a series regular in the show, but her role in comparison to the later seasons of the show were still bite-sized, and she was actually still a functioning DA at this time in the show.
Season 6 was fairly the same, but then, we get to season 7. Cecile in season 7 was put at the center stage the most she had ever been throughout the showat that point, as, she not only took down Psych while sitting in The Thinker's chair, not only had irrelevant screen-time showcasing her sitting around STAR Labs doing absolutely nothing, but she had a whole episode dedicated to her which introduced an aspect of her that had never been forshadowed before, but was never brought up again in future episodes, which was that she suffered from mental illness after blaming herself for her mothers death.
The point of introducing this side of Cecile was to develop an emotional connection to the character, to make an investment -- there was never any setup for any of that plot point, as the writers never made Cecile a compelling character to begin with. It was quite evident that in season 1, Cecile did not really meet any qualifications to serve as a main charcter, let alone on Team Flash! It is still to this day, mind-boggingly infuriating that she was ever made a main character.
Season's 8 and 9 do show a progression in her character, but oh so toward the worst possible faults. Cecile now can't help but explaining how a character blatantly feels when they experience an emotion to the audience, regardless of the fact that she treats us like babies, she says the same sentence in every single scene when this happens -- "I feel...".
And the worst, she is still taking up screen-time that can go toward anyone else! Maybe Barry, who has had his role reduced in recent seasons to make room for Cecile for some unexplicable reason. In season 9 it was the worst of it, as, not only did Cecile gain telekinesis, but she gained the power of flight, and the power to get inside people's minds, all leading to in the year 2049, as a 75 year-old woman, she is just going around in her nauseating-designed super suit taking down anyone who stands in her path as "Virtue"! She took down Godspeed in the series finale like it was nothing, making The Godspeed arc in season 7 more of a joke than it was.
Cecile Horton had been invented by the show to serve as a "one and done" character. Her usefullness to the show never reached the heights as any other side character's had. Iris West-Allen is a normal human being, just like Cecile, but her importance to the show is remarkably more needed than Cecile's is. In fact, all the side characters on this show are terrible: Allegra, Chester, Cecile, Mark, Khione... All served little to no purpose on the show, and if they had left early on or never been intrdocued, the show could have been miles better.
Who is your most hated character?