This year’s Christmas in Weatherfield is not warm for the Driscoll family.

Right from the beginning of festive week, the audience has clearly felt the unstable atmosphere covering this seemingly perfect family.

Maggie – the mother who is strict on the outside, but full of control on the inside – sits at the head of the table with an unpredictable smile, looking at each member as if marking a target.

Next to her is Ben, trying to keep the peace; Eva hugs Susie and smiles for the sake of it; and Will, Daniel, Alya, and Adam all accidentally add drama to the Christmas party that is waiting to explode.

It all started with a seemingly small detail: the letter Eva wrote on Adam’s advice. He told her to pour out her heart on paper, as a form of therapy to face her true feelings, because Eva had lived in the shell of Ben’s “perfect girlfriend” for too long. The letter, which should have been kept safe, was accidentally stuffed into Eva’s pocket when Adam frantically hid the jewelry box he bought for Alya. At that moment, Maggie appeared, her eyes sharp as knives, watching the whole scene but pretending not to know anything. No need for superpowers, just a controlling, obsessive mother is enough to make all the secrets come out one by one.

Christmas lunch at the Driscoll house started quite “family-like”: everyone sat around the dining table, the lights flashing, the dishes were spread out. Ben tried to talk to Eva about the future, about Susie wanting another baby, but the more he talked, the more tense Eva’s face became. She knew she was deceiving Ben with her silence.