The Block 2024: Kylie and Brad Knock Back a Penguin and Hand Kristian and Mimi Their Third Win

Right, Let’s Set the Scene

Guest bedroom number two, everybody. Not to be confused with guest bedroom number one back in week two, which feels like about nine years ago now given how much has happened since, Bar Crushers, fired builders, a birthday putt-putt tournament with a semi-professional golfing Scott Cam. This week the Blockheads had to somehow out-cute themselves again, this time under a $30,000 prize umbrella (Ford cash, Gucci frocks courtesy of Kinsman, a Hafele wardrobe upgrade) plus a genuinely stupid twist: a bonus-point penguin, up for grabs, that one team could cash in whenever they liked.

Spoiler: someone did not cash it in, and it cost them the entire week. But before we get to that special kind of self-inflicted pain, there was a birthday, a return of the Blockinator, a meltdown, and a phone call so tense it made a florist’s delivery look like a hostage negotiation. Let’s get into it.

Final Score Card

Rank	Team	Score	Judges’ Verdict
🥇 1st	Kristian & Mimi	28	“I don’t see complacency here. I just see expertise.”, Darren Palmer
🥈 2nd	Kylie & Brad	27.5	“You would’ve won if you played the penguin.”, Scott Cam
🥉 3rd	Courtney & Grant	27	“Now, I’m gonna call it early. These guys are the front-runner.”, Marty Fox
4th (equal)	Ricky & Haydn	26.5	“This is streets ahead of every other room that they’ve done.”, Marty Fox
4th (equal)	Jesse & Paige	26.5	“You have served up a very, very sweet room that won’t date.”, Judges

Half a point. That’s the entire margin between first and second this week, and it exists purely because Kylie and Brad looked a guaranteed bonus point dead in the eye and said no thanks. Everyone else is separated by fractions too, this was the tightest guest bedroom week of the season by a country mile, and somehow the team that got told last week they’d “dropped the ball” walked away with the trophy anyway.

Jesse and Paige: The Kids’ Room, the Meltdown, and the Missing Plaster

Jesse and Paige went full Parisian dollhouse this week, building a kids’ bedroom around a walk-in robe (the only house with one, they were quick to point out), a gingham-and-bird-print colour story, and a hand-built jigsaw desk that Jesse painted pink and wavy to match the shelving. It was ambitious. It was also, according to Paige mid-week, almost the final straw.

“I don’t (BLEEP) want to be here. Get me off this (BLEEP) show! I’m (BLEEP) over this…”

That was Paige’s Saturday-night dummy spit, as reported secondhand by Mimi to Kristian (“They had a massive dummy-spit last night”), followed swiftly by an actual on-camera blow-up between Jesse and Paige where she told him flat out, “I don’t give a (BLEEP) how you feel! Deal with it yourself!” Not exactly the Parisian dollhouse energy of the finished room, but reality TV rarely is.

Then came the 1am phone call. Jesse assumed it was his mum. It was Nadia from the Block Shop, ringing to explain that the desk caddies were delayed in the post from Queensland, a conversation Paige insists never happened.

“Well, sorry, I’m calling you a white liar right now.”

Despite all that, the room itself landed beautifully. Marty walked in with “a huge smile on his face” and declared “Oh, how cute is this!”, Shaynna called the colour palette “absolutely superb,” and the judges agreed the room “won’t date.” The only blemish, literally, was Darren finding raw, unfinished plaster in the walk-in robe where wallpaper should have been. “We’ve got a little bit of an incompletion issue there,” he said, in the understatement of the week. Great room, sloppy finish: equal last with 26.5.

Courtney and Grant: Grumpy’s 30th, the Blockinator’s Return, and a Skirting Board That Judges Called “Sexy”

Grant turned 30 (or 50, depending which running joke you believe) this week, and Courtney kicked things off with an 8am birthday session of putt-putt golf, complete with a surprise cameo from Keith “The Blockinator” himself and, later, Grant’s actual brother Andrew flying in disguised as a delivery driver. Wholesome stuff. Less wholesome: this all happened days after Grant and Courtney fired their builders mid-fight, a saga that was still bubbling when Keith turned up on-site and went full Blockinator on Grant over unpaid invoices and cleanliness.

“I am fuming, mate.” “You’re fuming? All of a sudden you’re fuming.”

Somehow, in between golf, birthday surprises and builder drama, Courtney and Grant still delivered what the judges called their best room yet, a “Moderterranean” multifunctional guest space with curved skirting boards borrowed straight from their bathroom design (with a favour from house one’s builder Zak, since their own builders were gone). Marty was so impressed he jumped the gun entirely.

“That skirting is sexy!”, Darren Palmer

Marty went further still, calling the pair “front-runners” and their house “an auctioneer’s dream.” Shaynna wasn’t quite so smitten, taking issue with a set of new pendant lights: “They feel like spaceships… it almost looks like a mistake.” Between the wardrobe drawer blocking the door and the spaceship lights, the room landed just shy of top spot, third place on 27, a very good week overshadowed by a genuinely stellar one elsewhere.

Ricky and Haydn: The Great Ensuite Redemption Arc

Last week these two didn’t deliver an ensuite at all, Marty called it “the most unfinished room in Block history.” This week, fresh off winning a $100,000 Bar Crusher boat in a fishing challenge and nursing the celebratory hangover to prove it, Ricky and Haydn turned up with a genuinely finished, genuinely stylish guest room built around curved bulkheads, built-in LED lighting and peachy, soft tones, with a little help from styling guru Jack from Freedom, who’d taught them how to fold a throw rug without looking like they’d never seen one before.

“This is streets ahead of every other room that they’ve done.”, Marty Fox

The judges liked it so much they accidentally named the boys’ entire aesthetic on the spot, “holiday resort”, which Ricky and Haydn then had to explain to reporters minutes later while visibly forgetting what it was called (“What’s it called? It’s called, um… lost it.”). Not everything was perfect: Marty flagged the concrete-look wardrobe finish as “too industrial,” and Shaynna wanted warmer tones instead of the grey-on-yellow combo. Still, this was the biggest turnaround of the week, and somehow it still only landed them equal last on 26.5, a genuinely brutal margin given the glowing feedback.

Kylie and Brad: The Penguin They Refused to Play

Kylie and Brad built a coastal-leaning kids’ room this week, jellyfish artwork (or rips in the sand, depending who you ask), a hanging chair positioned dangerously close to a window, and a palette the judges said finally nailed the “soft, light and bright” note they’d been chasing for a month. Darren was thrilled, Marty called the room “incredibly marketable,” and Shaynna loved the layered timber and rug work. It was, by every measure, the best room this pair has produced all season.

“Really starting to see a house that is starting to feel complete.”, Marty Fox

And then came the penguin. Kylie and Brad had won a bonus-point penguin from an earlier nesting-box challenge, guaranteed to lock in extra points whenever they chose to use it. Scott Cam gave them the chance to cash it in before scores were read out. Kylie said no. Repeatedly. Emphatically.

“No, thank you, Scotty.” “You want to take the penguin home?” “To North Queensland.”

Turns out that decision cost them the entire week, Scott Cam confirmed afterwards, flat out, “Kylie and Brad, you would’ve won if you played the penguin.” Asked later whether she’d deliberately snubbed a guaranteed win, Kylie didn’t dodge it: “Yes. Yes, I did. I don’t want to win a room that I don’t even like. How’s that fair?” A genuinely baffling, genuinely admirable, genuinely half-a-point-shaped act of principle.

Kristian and Mimi: The Rainbow Bedhead That Broke the Internet (and Won Them the Week)

After being told last week they’d gotten “a little bit arrogant” and dropped the ball, Kristian and Mimi came back swinging with a cloud-and-rainbow bedhead concept so ambitious it required four spare teal bedheads and bases nobody will ever use, just to get the trundle configuration right. Chaotic ordering process aside, the execution landed perfectly, Marty called the bedhead a likely bestseller on the Block Shop, and predicted it would “break the internet.”

“This bedhead, I can see this being a best-seller, because this is stunning.”, Marty Fox

Darren went even further, directly rebutting the “complacent” criticism from the week before.

“I don’t see complacency here. I just see expertise.”, Darren Palmer

Between the rainbow theatrics and a lucky mini-golf hole-in-one earlier in the week that won Mimi $1,000 (which she promptly gifted to a stunned Grant for his birthday), it was a big week for the pair all round. With 28 points, this was their third win of the season, and it only happened because the team ahead of them on room quality decided not to take the free half point that would have sealed it. Sometimes The Block really is that petty.

How It All Wrapped Up

Jesse and Paige survived a Saturday-night meltdown and a fight with the Block Shop to deliver a gorgeous kids’ room let down by unfinished plaster, finishing equal last on 26.5. Courtney and Grant balanced Grant’s birthday, a builder-firing hangover and a Blockinator dressing-down to land a stunning “Moderterranean” room, taking third on 27. Ricky and Haydn pulled off the comeback of the week, going from “most unfinished room in Block history” to judges’ darlings, yet still finished equal last on 26.5. Kylie and Brad built their best room of the season, refused a guaranteed bonus point out of principle, and it cost them the win by half a point, settling for second on 27.5. And Kristian and Mimi, fresh off a “complacent” roasting the week before, delivered a rainbow bedhead built to sell and claimed their third win on 28 points.

Grab a coffee, get comfortable, and we’ll see you back here for the next disaster.