EastEnders has teased the outcome of the highly-anticipated Christmas Day murder in its final offering prior to the big one, which will see one resident perish in brutal scenes.
The BBC One soap has had fans on the edge of their seats for much of the year after a historic flashfoward sequence aired in February, confirming a death over the festive season.
Six iconic women, Linda Carter (Kellie Bright), Denise Fox (Diane Parish), Sharon Watts(Letitia Dean), Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth), Stacey Slater (Lacey Turner) and Suki Panesar (Balvinder Sopal) were seen towering over a body, with bride-to-be Sharon subsequently declaring the mystery corpse person dead.
The matriarchs, now known to fans as The Six, have crossed paths with a number of evil men over the past year, with EastEnders confirming seven potential victims.
Jack Branning (Scott Maslen), Nish Panesar (Navin Chowdhry), Dean Wicks (Matt Di Angelo), Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden), Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters), Ravi Gulati (Aaron Thiara) and Rocky Cotton (Brian Conley).
One of them will perish at Christmas. But who?
That is the question and one EastEnders will answer on Christmas Day, solving the near-year-long mystery in unmissable scenes.
Ahead of that, however, the women were seen gathering together in Friday’s (December 22) episode at the carol concert, with Howie Danes (Delroy Atkinson) stunning the community with his angelic rendition of O Holy Night.
Suki was on cloud nine watching the concert, having reunited with love of her life Eve Unwin (Heather Peace) and remained blissfully unaware that Nish and Ravi Gulati were set to be freed from prison.
Sharon Watts, meanwhile, contemplated the fact that she’s keeping a secret from husband-to-be Keanu, who has no clue that Albie isn’t his son.
Denise was seen emotional over Jack’s recent one-night-stand with Stacey, who shared a look with the detective, whose abusive behaviour towards both women has spiralled out of control over the past week.
Linda, meanwhile, looked somewhat inebriated as she stared at rapist Dean, who had just hours earlier admitted what he did, while Kathy stewed over Rocky’s betrayal.
As the episode came to a close, viewers were transported to the bar of the Queen Vic, where the shot lingered on the exact spot where the body will be found on Christmas Day.
But who dies? And who kills? You’ll just have to tune in to find out.
What’s intriguing, however, is that Phil Mitchell, one of the seven men, was missing from the closing montage. Is this indicative of what’s to come?
EastEnders continues Christmas Day at 9:45pm on BBC One.
