The following contains spoilers for Shadows House Season 2, Episode 3, "A Great Cleaning", now streaming on Crunchyroll.
The plot thickens in Season 2, Episode 3 of Shadows House. The rejoicing party is already ominous enough with the coffee being administered to every Living Doll on a daily basis to slowly but gradually brainwash them. Emilico knows that she and Shaun can't just keep spitting the coffee out into their sleeves. It's just not a sustainable solution and sooner or later, someone will catch them in the act. Luckily or unluckily, Emilico has more important things to worry about when the second rejoicing party rolls around.
The mysterious robed figure who appeared in Episode 1 has so far not made another appearance -- up until Episode 3, that is. Although the Dolls haven't made much of a headway as to who the robed figure is, they discover some disconcerting abilities that the figure demonstrates.
Perhaps one of the more disturbing soot powers a Shadows master has thus far is Louise's whose abilities allow her to manipulate and control Lou and Veiled Dolls. It turns out that it's not just Louise who has the ability to control someone. Mirabelle and Isabelle, twin Shadow masters, are haughty and look down on the other Shadow masters and their Living Dolls, and they demonstrate this through their soot powers where they can manipulate another Living Doll's body. They force Emilico to start barking like a dog, and she isn't able to break free until Kate trips them up, forcing them break their hold on Emilico. Kate's actions isn't something that the twins are going to forget.
At the rejoicing party, right before the coffee gets distributed, Rosemary enters late, but there's something wrong with her. Her eyes are completely blacked out -- infected with soot sickness. This isn't the first time this has happened, but there's something different. Multiple scorches burst out and start attacking them. More and more Living Dolls like Mia get infected as the scorches begin latching onto their faces. It gets more difficult to fight against the scorches when Emilico's fellow Living Dolls start attacking them too.
As if the scorches weren't already hard to deal with, the little pests coagulate into a giant scorch monster known as a phantom which looks a bit like No-Face in Spirited Away. No matter how much the Living Dolls try to break them apart, the phantom just reforms. The only way that the Living Dolls have a chance of winning is if they use Olly's cleaning machine Oliver Mark II but controlling it is a different story. The suction power makes the aim completely unpredictable.
Only Emilico volunteers and even though the nozzle flings her around, with the help of the rest of her friends, she's able to suck up the phantom. Emilico may always look a little naive and not so bright, but she has shown how resourceful she is in the first season during the Debut and now in this episode when she was able to use the force of the suction as a way to transport her around. Meanwhile, Shaun and Ricky find the robed figure, but before they can reveal their identity, it shoots out a scorch that prevents them from giving chase.
With one disaster abated, the rejoicing party can now resume but the Belle twins who were entrusted the responsibility of protecting the coffee by Susie inexplicably break the bottles of coffee. From their identical horrified expressions, neither of them had done it out of their own volition. It's suspiciously similar to their own masters' soot ability.
There's also the matter of the robed figure. They didn't seem all that concerned about hiding from everyone and since they were able to produce scorches, they're most likely a Shadow. It's more than likely that Rosemary contracting soot sickness right at the moment of the rejoicing party was orchestrated so that the twins being in charge of the coffee wouldn't arouse suspicion. It's also important to note that Christopher appeared at the beginning of the episode where he told a story to the other Shadows around a child being consumed by scorches and the scorches later on turning into a phantom.