A Kangaroo Named MG Just Handed Sonny and Alicia Their First Ever Block Win

Right, Let’s Set the Scene

Twenty-seven hours to tools down, five teams, one shared front yard budget, and, because The Block loves a milestone, this also happened to be the show’s 1,000th episode. No pressure. Scott Cam spent the cold open reminding everyone this is the countdown of lasts: last pre-start, last room reveal, last tools down, last judging. After that, it’s straight to auction. This is the final scorecard before the houses go under the hammer, and every team knows it, especially with Bunnings putting $50,000 off the winning team’s reserve on the table.

And what a way to close it out. There’s a torii gate nicknamed “the bus stop,” a custom 2.3-metre kangaroo statue, a fake face-on-the-garage-door prank that had Foreman Dan sweating, a $34,000 budget blowout discovered on a Monday morning, and two goldfish who did not survive a Daylesford frost. This is the last stop before auction week, so buckle up, because everyone’s playing for keeps.

Final Score Card

Note: this episode’s judges called out individual scores from three of the four judges live to camera (Dave, Darren and Marty), but not a full public tally for every team from every judge, so the ranking below is our best-effort read based on the scores we did hear plus the tone and substance of the judges’ feedback, not a verbatim scoreboard.

Rank	Team	Score	Judges’ Verdict
🥇 1st	Sonny & Alicia (House 4)	Winner by 1 point (incl. a 10 from Marty, 9.5 from Darren)	“There’s a soul here, there’s a purpose.”
🥈 2nd	Emma & Ben (House 1)	Not read aloud, inferred from feedback	“It’s pretty hard to beat… planted to perfection.”
🥉 3rd	Robby & Mat (House 5)	8 (Dave), 9 (Darren)	“Craftsmanship is gorgeous… but right now, it’s underwhelming.”
4th	Han & Can (House 2)	Not read aloud, inferred from feedback	“I don’t hate it. I know it’s polarising.”
5th	Britt & Taz (House 3)	Not read aloud, inferred from feedback	“This, for me, looks like an industrial shed.”

Sonny and Alicia won by a single point, which is the kind of margin that makes twelve weeks of near-misses sting even harder in retrospect. They finally cracked the code with a bought-in kangaroo statue, three enormous Chinese elms, a second driveway, and their own $260,000 caravan parked out front for good measure, a genuinely unfair amount of hardware for one front yard. Meanwhile at the bottom of the table, Britt and Taz, the team who’d won the most rooms all season, copped the harshest feedback of the night after a run-out-of-budget yard that Shaynna compared to “a mine site” and Marty called “an industrial shed.” Rough way to finish a strong season.

Sonny and Alicia’s Kangaroo, Caravan and Second Driveway Finally End Their 12-Week Losing Streak

Sonny and Alicia went into this episode as the only team in Block history not to have won a single room, and they knew it, Sonny straight up admitted “I’m scared because I don’t want to leave a loser.” So they threw the kitchen sink at it: a second driveway nobody else had, a $260,000 caravan parked out front, three enormous Littlehampton brick-framed Chinese elms, and a custom 2.3-metre bronze-look kangaroo statue they affectionately named “MG,” after the MG car up for grabs. It worked. Darren called it a home with “soul” and “purpose,” Shaynna insisted the sparse planting wasn’t plain but “luxury,” and Marty, notoriously stingy with praise all season, finally cracked, handing over a perfect 10.

“It looks like house four has been an absolute dark horse in this competition.”, Marty Fox

“I don’t want you to be the only team to ever in history not to win a room.” “That’s not (BLEEP) funny. Stop laughing.”

They won by a single point, took home two MGs, $50,000 off their reserve, and, thanks to Marty’s 10, an extra $10,000 in Arnott’s biscuits. Alicia immediately rang her mum to give her the second car. A tidy way to end a rough 12 weeks.

Emma and Ben Nailed Everything Except the Gates They Painted in Sub-Zero Temperatures

Emma and Ben were sitting pretty heading into judging day, deck finished, driveway gurneyed, lighting working, garden “planted to perfection” according to the judges. Then the Daylesford frost intervened. They’d painted their timber gates the night before judging, only for the paint to run straight off in the cold, forcing them to pull the gates off entirely before the judges arrived.

“You see the value of a landscape designer… everything is planted to perfection.”, Shaynna Blaze

“They’ve left off two gates. So, it can’t be a ten. We get that. But I tell you what, they’re given it a solid nudge.”, Darren Palmer

Every single judge fell for the bottle-tree-framed driveway and the mounded garden, and Shaynna went as far as predicting whoever wins landscaping might win the whole show, Marty even name-checked getting the facade “popping” on the Domain app as the real marketing win. Missing gates aside, this was about as close to a perfect front yard as Daylesford saw all season, Scott Cam even noted the pair had racked up “lots of second places” across the competition before “coming home strong.”

Robby and Mat Got Ambushed By a $34,000 Budget Blowout and Still Walked Away With an 8 and a 9

Just when Robby and Mat thought they’d cruise to the finish, their landscaper Paal Grant dropped the bomb on Monday morning: $34,000 outstanding. Cue Mat threatening bodily harm and the pair spending their final days as Paal’s unpaid labourers to claw the budget back under control. The judges could see the strain, gorgeous craftsmanship, undersized “juvenile” plants because the money had run dry.

“We’ve got 34 grand outstanding.” “Sorry, what?” “No, I’m ready to kill someone.”

“The craftsmanship and the workmanship is gorgeous… but right now, today, it’s underwhelming. And what are we judging? We’re judging today.”, Darren Palmer

Dave Franklin called it the most sustainable garden on The Block and gave it an 8; Darren followed with a 9, praising the meteorite-like boulder placement and the elegant James Hardie board-and-batten facade line, even while docking points for the skinny, budget-strapped plants. Both judges agreed it’ll look spectacular by spring, just not quite there on judging day.

Han and Can’s Torii Gate Got Called “The Bus Stop” and They Judged With No Front Gate At All

If there was ever a “go big or go home” front yard this season, it was Han and Can’s Japanese-inspired “Flow Estate”, complete with a torii gate arbour so dramatic that Foreman Dan nicknamed it “the bus stop” and other contestants openly compared it to the entrance of Jurassic Park. They filled it out with a Northcote Pottery zen water feature and a full Beacon Lighting consult to light up the meandering path. On top of that, their concrete walkway had to be acid-washed after being hosed off too early, their retaining wall needed an emergency safety balustrade covered in plants to disguise it, and, the kicker, their actual custom front gate simply never turned up.

“Are you literally trying to (BLEEP) kill me?”, Han, on the torii gate reveal

“The amount of buyers that we will meet in the marketplace that specifically want a Japanese garden are pretty slim.”, Marty Fox

Dave Franklin was genuinely won over (“it ticks Japanese for me”), but Shaynna couldn’t reconcile the exterior theme with the pop-culture interior, and Marty flagged it as a straight-up commercial risk. Polarising is the polite word for it.

Britt and Taz Pranked the Foreman With a Fake Garage Door, Then Copped the Harshest Feedback of the Night

Britt and Taz, the team with the most room wins all season, arrived at judging with genuine confidence off the back of a stunning Indigenous artwork on their garage door by local Dja Dja Wurrung artist Troy Firebrace, unveiled after a cheeky decoy prank on Foreman Dan involving fake photos of their own faces. But everywhere else in the yard, the $20,000 budget simply didn’t stretch, and the judges noticed.

“This, for me, looks like an industrial shed. This does not match the level of luxury that is sitting behind these walls.”, Marty Fox

“There is absolutely nothing here at all that I can even talk about landscaping.”, Shaynna Blaze

The garage door itself was a genuine highlight, and their side-yard moonlight cinema, complete with a fresh JB Hi-Fi outdoor set-up, won praise as clever use of space, but Dave, Shaynna and Marty were united on the bare, concrete-heavy front, Shaynna went as far as suggesting they should’ve cut their losses and just turfed it once the budget crunch became obvious. Scott Cam still made a point of reminding them, gently, that they’ve won more rooms than anyone else this season. Cold comfort on the night, but worth remembering come auction.

How It All Wrapped Up

Twelve weeks, five teams, one kangaroo, two dead goldfish, and, finally, a winner nobody saw coming. Sonny and Alicia turned a season-long losing streak into a one-point victory on the very last reveal, taking home two MGs, $50,000 off their reserve and an extra $10,000 in Arnott’s biscuits for good measure. Emma and Ben’s near-perfect garden was let down only by frost-ruined gates, Robby and Mat weathered a last-minute budget disaster to still land respectable scores, Han and Can’s polarising torii gate split the judging panel right down the middle, and Britt and Taz, despite the season’s best room-win record, copped the toughest night of feedback when their budget simply ran out.

That’s it for the renovating. Grab a coffee, get comfortable, auction week is next, and we’ll see you back here for that one too.