House of Anubis

House of Anubis

Episode 6: House of Intruders/House of Proof

By: Carlos Uribe

House of Anubis is a show about an American teenager who goes to a British boarding school. It airs on Nickelodeon.

Spoilers Ahoy!

Whenever a less-than-intelligent character has a good idea, it's usually on accident. They might not even realize that they had a good idea until they're told about it. Sometimes they remain ignorant of the fact even after they've been told they're a genius. In other words-it's hard for dim and shallow characters to purposefully contribute to the main plot. It's such a nice surprise that Amber is able to actually help the protagonists and she's able to do so on purpose. She doesn't have a good idea on accident. She might not be very bright when it comes to academics, but she's clearly more resourceful than more people give her credit. This continues to make Amber more human and more relatable. I'm starting to like her a lot more. Bringing her into the main plot has managed to not only do wonders for it, but also for the character. In other words-the series is wonderfully using the main plot to further flesh out Amber.

What is her good idea? It's simple-why not record the cylinders. This way they don't have to sneak into the attic to hear it. This will allow them to play it back as long as they want and with less risk. She also gets the idea that if there's one secret panel, there might be another. Her final idea is to officially form a club, and she even came up with a clever name. These ideas all end up moving the plot along. The first idea leads to the revelation that the previous owners of the Anubis house had been killed by someone. It's also confirmed that the old lady that set the plot in motion is the little girl in the cylinders. They aren't able to get the killer's identity, as that will have to be revealed in a future episode. The second idea leads to them discovering that the old lady was right about her name being Sarah. The third idea indirectly leads to the box being open, which only reveals a riddle. What does the riddle mean? That's the cliff-hanger of the episode. All of these plot movements were able to happen due to Amber's involvement.

While Amber is becoming a more likeable character, I'm starting to dislike Jerome more and more. Jerome is being presented as a prankster, but he doesn't have the charm to pull it off. He's coming across as mean and there's no real reason for his behavior. It seems like he's just a bully and he pulls his pranks out of boredom. While Alfie at least has his status as a loser to help balance out his personality, Jerome has nothing going for him. Considering that this show has a surprising amount of layers, I'm hoping that the series will be able to justify this in the near future. If it doesn't, then this show will definably find itself with a character that brings down any scene that he's in. This would mean that the show has a weakness that isn't forgivable. The show therefore needs to work on the character of Jerome or at least find a way to make him more endearing.

There was also a development with Joy's story. Patricia continues to be followed by a guy whom she foolishly believes to be a ghost at first. She's also able to truly convince the drama teacher that her best friend has gone missing. That's because the teacher finds the picture that has been poorly photoshoped (seriously, how has it fooled people for this long) and happens to find Joy's phone just lying there. While I have no problem with having a teacher figure out that Patricia is telling the truth, the way he collects evidence is so obvious that it makes you question the intelligence of everyone else in the show. This is a kid's shows so it can't get too complicated, but one can at least hope that they would have done a better job at giving him the evidence.

This is all to state that this ended up being a pretty good episode of House of Anubis. While I dislike Jerome's presence, Amber's contributions to the main plot and her character development more than offset it. Joy's disappearance is starting to get a bit old now, but it seems like the plot is actually moving forward. This is an episode that could have been better-but it managed to remain good because of the plot and Amber.