Mustang, Meltdowns and a 70-Foot Palm Tree: The Block 2024’s Final Room Reveal Before Auction

Right, Let’s Set the Scene

Eighty-five days. Twelve tools downs. Five houses that started life as a dust storm and a tent and somehow, against all reasonable odds, turned into multi-million dollar holiday mansions on Phillip Island. This is the last room reveal of Season 20 before the whole circus rolls into auction week, and Channel Nine decided the appropriate way to mark the occasion was to dangle a Ford Mustang Mach-E in front of five exhausted, sunburnt renovators and watch them lose their minds over a car.

Front yard and facade week is the “everyone can see this from the street” week, no hiding a dodgy ensuite behind a closed door here, it’s all curb appeal, all the time. Which meant palm trees the size of apartment blocks, a garage door so pink it required sunglasses, and at least one contestant deciding the best way to process her feelings was to run barefoot down the middle of a public road. Standard Saturday night on The Block, really. Let’s get into it.

Final Score Card

A programming note before the table: the judges did not read out numeric scores this episode. Instead they walked house-to-house delivering verdicts on-camera, and Scott Cam announced only the overall winner of the Mustang at the end. The ranking below is our best read of the judges’ commentary, from most to least glowing, the 1st place finish (Courtney and Grant) is confirmed by the actual car-winning announcement; the rest is informed reading of the room, not official scores.

Rank	Team	Score	Judges’ Verdict
🥇 1st	Courtney & Grant (House 2)	Confirmed winner, Mustang Mach-E	“This is a dream entry… it is still my favourite house on The Block.”
🥈 2nd	Ricky & Haydn (House 3)	Inferred, glowing feedback	“It’s beyond phenomenal… this is actually really inviting, very sophisticated, very elegant.”
🥉 3rd	Kristian & Mimi (House 5)	Inferred, strong but critiqued layout	“One of the most consistent homes on The Block… but I have to say they’ve got the layout wrong.”
4th	Maddy & Charlotte (House 1)	Inferred, mixed	“One of the best styled garages I think I’ve ever seen on The Block” vs “it just feels unfinished.”
5th	Kylie & Brad (House 4)	Inferred, toughest feedback	“There’s not a lot here, guys… it’s almost like they’ve checked out.”

No suspense about who’s bottom of the ladder this week, Kylie and Brad’s front yard copped the harshest language of the night, while Courtney and Grant cruised home on the strength of two straight room reveal wins’ worth of prize money, ploughed almost entirely into plants. Ricky and Haydn ran the judges’ own advice back at them with a palm tree so large it needed its own weather system, and very nearly stole the show. The real gap this week wasn’t in the styling, it was in the money left in the bank, and it showed on every front lawn.

Maddy and Charlotte: The Comeback Kids Stick the Landing (Mostly)

Let’s not undersell what Maddy and Charlotte actually achieved this week: they finished. That doesn’t sound like much until you remember they walked onto this build in week four, cold, after Jesse and Paige clocked off for their mental health, and picked up a half-built house mid-season. Scott Cam himself pointed out on camera that no team has ever done that and made it to the finish line in twenty seasons of the show. Whatever else happens, that’s a genuine flex.

The front yard leaned deliberately simple, white James Hardie cladding, a curved French-pattern-tile path, a big stretch of lawn, and a robot mower so they’d never have to think about it again (“low maintenance holiday home” was the mantra all week). The judges liked the intent but wanted more: Dave Franklin said the facade “doesn’t give me enough height,” and the panel agreed the pair had probably tipped their budget into the backyard weeks earlier and left the street frontage looking a touch bare.

“This is one of the best styled garages I think I’ve ever seen on The Block.”

That praise, from Darren Palmer, was aimed squarely at their garage, complete with EV charger, solar battery and a “Battery Brad” nickname earned on the spot. It was genuinely the standout moment of their reveal, a rare unqualified win in an otherwise “yeah but” kind of feedback session. Shaynna Blaze summed the whole week up neatly by acknowledging the tens they’d earned earlier in the season while noting they’d “let themselves down on the last one here”, which is judge-speak for: great house, shaky front yard, still a genuinely remarkable turnaround story.

Courtney and Grant: The Plant Budget Finally Pays Off

Two consecutive room reveal wins and two tens worth ten grand each will do wonders for a landscaping budget, and Courtney and Grant spent theirs like people who knew exactly what they were doing. Across a genuinely enormous 379 square metre front yard they built three architectural arbours from Blue Croc, planted a 3.5-metre mature olive tree as a centrepiece, and, per Grant, self-appointed head of “Grant’s plant market”, kept adding trees until Courtney had to physically tell him to settle down.

“This is a dream entry… it is still my favourite house in The Block.”

The judges did not hold back. “That looks lush and expensive and inviting,” said one as they walked in. Dave Franklin called it the “absolute perfect brief of coastal.” Shaynna and the panel praised the lily pilly framing, the sandstone and limestone softening the black-and-white James Hardie exterior, and the water features giving the whole space an “audibly insane” quality. Marty Fox went as far as predicting the pair “will inspire Australians for the next few years in a style we haven’t seen before.” Add it all up and it’s no surprise they walked away with the Mustang, the only real surprise is that anyone thought it was a contest.

Ricky and Haydn: The 70-Foot Palm Tree and the Barbie Dream Garage

Weeks ago the judges casually suggested Ricky and Haydn lean into a palm tree theme. Ricky and Haydn heard that suggestion and responded the only way two challenge-winning blokes with a decent budget know how: by installing a 70-foot palm tree named Lachie that arrived on a truck and needed its own logistical operation to get into the ground. “Uh, that wasn’t there last week,” deadpanned one judge, before the whole panel dissolved into disbelief. “It’s beyond phenomenal,” Shaynna said, adding that they’d told the boys to run with the palm theme “but we never expected this.”

“It’s very sophisticated. It’s very elegant… who would have thought?”

That quote is genuinely about the garage door, which they painted hot pink, cued up a full Barbie Girl singalong for, and called “a world first.” Somehow it worked, with the panel calling the whole package “actually really inviting” against all odds. Not everything landed: Marty Fox loathed the gravel and self-watering “food cube” garden beds out back, warning that in a wet Phillip Island winter it would turn into “a slush pot,” and saying flatly “I really hate it.” But the overall verdict was still glowing, the judges called Ricky and Haydn “the most impressive team in terms of listening and adapting” all season, which, for two guys who spent most of the year better known for winning challenges than renovating, is about as good as validation gets.

Kylie and Brad: No Money, No Couch, No Chill

This was always going to be the hardest episode for Kylie and Brad, and not just because of the biggest footprint on The Block to fill on the smallest budget. It started the weekend before reveal, when a boozy night at their place saw Brad flirting with Mimi and dropping “inappropriate comments” that Kylie overheard. “I can’t be on national television having my marriage breaking down,” she said, and for a moment it genuinely looked like she might walk. She stayed, but the tension never really left the build.

Then the practical disasters piled on: the stone for their barbecue bench never arrived (“no wow factor… this is what it is,” Brad admitted), a lounge order failed to show up, and when a rival team offered a spare couch, Kylie shut it down instantly. “I don’t want anyone’s seconds,” she said. “I don’t like charity. And I don’t like help. It shows weakness.” Then their painter walked off a half-finished wall of trim, and Kylie hit a wall of her own: “I want everyone gone. I’m not kidding. I am actually not (BLEEP) kidding.”

“It’s almost like they’ve checked out.”

That was the judges’ read on the front yard, and it wasn’t the only bruise, Shaynna said flatly, “if you have to put a piece of art on the outside of your building, you’re in trouble,” and the entertaining area copped the memorable line “there’s not a lot here, guys.” When Scott went to read out the feedback, Kylie cut him off, “Kylie, I’m not going to wrap it up”, and told him she “really couldn’t care.” It boiled over properly after judging, with Kylie sprinting barefoot down the middle of the road, refusing to get in a car, and telling producers “I don’t want to come back for auction.” The judges did find one genuine bright spot, their body corporate deal granting direct access to the tennis court, which Marty called “one of the biggest marketing hooks” of the whole season, but it was cold comfort on a night that had very little else going for it.

Kristian and Mimi: The Consistent House With the Confusing Balcony

On paper, Kristian and Mimi had one of the best weeks of anyone: a first-floor entertainer’s balcony, HomePro automated blinds, a bar for six, a dining table for eight, a lounge for eight more, and the $30,000 Wolf barbecue they won all the way back in week one finally getting installed like, as Scott put it, “a glove.” Landscaper Troy even backed his own dinghy into their new secondary driveway on reveal morning just so the judges had something to look at instead of empty pavers, commitment to the bit that deserves its own award.

“House five is still one of the most consistent homes on The Block… but I have to say they’ve got the layout wrong.”

Darren Palmer’s praise for the bones of the house was real, consistently good bathrooms, a great kitchen, beautifully designed bedrooms all season. But the balcony copped genuine scrutiny: the judges pointed out that with 25 dining chairs crammed on, there was barely room for three or four people to actually sit comfortably, the barbecue was in the wrong spot entirely (everyone agreed it belonged downstairs near the pool), and the fire pit ended up wedged somewhere strange. “If you take away all the tables and all the chairs from this balcony, what’s here? A few pots,” one judge noted. Marty was also disappointed a planned outdoor fireplace didn’t happen, the answer, inevitably, was “money.” Still, the overall verdict landed warmly, with Marty calling the whole Phillip Island resort concept “a major highlight” of the season.

How It All Wrapped Up

Courtney and Grant drove home in a brand new Mustang Mach-E off the back of a lush, expensive-looking front yard the judges genuinely couldn’t fault. Ricky and Haydn planted a 70-foot palm tree, painted their garage door Barbie pink, and somehow earned some of the warmest praise of the night for it. Kristian and Mimi delivered another consistently strong house let down slightly by a crowded, oddly laid-out balcony. Maddy and Charlotte became the first team in twenty seasons to take over a build mid-season and still finish it, with a stellar garage undercut by an unfinished-feeling front yard. And Kylie and Brad closed out their season the way it had threatened to go for weeks, no couch, no stone cladding, no patience left, and a barefoot sprint down the road that said everything the judges’ notes couldn’t.

That’s the last room reveal of Season 20 done and dusted, five houses built, several relationships tested, and one very lucky Mustang recipient. Grab a coffee, get comfortable, auction week is next, and we’ll see you back here for that one too.