New Year's Day in Walford, and Ronnie Mitchell asks the question on everyone's lips: "How hard can it be to find a grade-A lunatic and a premature baby?"

The answer, of course, is that if it's on EastEnders, just hard enough so they don't get discovered until it's time for a dramatic finish on a double-bill night.

The grade-A lunatic in question was Sean Slater, right, who'd discovered on Christmas Day that he wasn't the father of Roxy's tot Amy and did a runner with the infant.

And so the hunt was on to find them. Naturally, the Mitchells were out in force, with Phil and Archie comprising Monday's scout party.

Ronnie, devastated that her boyfriend Jack Branning was Amy's real dad after a brief fling with her sister Roxy, sought revenge by trying to seduce Jack's brother Max, who'd previously had an affair with his son Bradley's partner Stacey, the sister of Sean, who isn't Amy's real dad. Come on, keep up.

Max was then realistically allowed to visit the woman in prison accused of trying to murder him, his ex-wife Tanya who'd been living until that point with Jack, who's Max's brother, the father of Amy, Ronnie's old flame, Roxy's one-night stand, and, more than likely, the Bishop of Durham, Professor Moriarty and Kermit the Frog.

Anyway, back to the hunt for Sean and Amy, who were, by Tuesday, holed up in a bedsit.

Phil and Jack now constituted the extended Mitchell clan's search party, while Stacey and Jean (don't ask) arrived to find Sean had scarpered with the infant.

New Year's Day began with Sean proving he's really an upstanding parent by stealing a car with a British Standard rear-facing baby seat (and to think, they called him irresponsible), pursued by the new away party of Phil and Billy Mitchell.

Events conspired, as only they can in Albert Square, for Roxy to be reunited with Amy at the Vic before Sean magically arrived like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn, otherwise known as breaking and entering. Roxy: "Are you going to take Amy away from me again? You go near her and I'll kill you."

Sean: "I can't think of a better way to go." Oh, Sean, don't underestimate yourself. Give it 10 minutes and I'm sure you'll come up with something.

All was mysteriously forgiven and Sean and Roxy eloped with the baby.

With Batman and Robin, Starsky and Hutch, and Little and Large now forming the Mitchell search party, Sean started quoting lines from the film Highlander: "It's better to burn out than to fade away," in his best Pirates of the Caribbean Jack Sparrow voice.

"Yar! This is the end of the road, me hearties, we're off to visit Davy Jones's Locker!"

O n what was surely the coldest night on record, Sean stopped the car at a frozen lake and revealed his grade-A lunatic suicide pact plot. Jack (Branning, not Sparrow) and Ronnie arrived to find Sean and Roxy doing a Dancing on Ice audition.

The ice cracked, Sean and Roxy disappeared into the water, Ronnie dived in to save Roxy, and Sean resurfaced before walking off into the night. I tell you, if it wasn't true, you'd never believe it.