The Blockheads are just over the halfway mark, yet this week could spell the end of the competition for everyone.
When Mitch and Mark get the OK to put a plunge pool on their rooftop terrace, host Scott Cam says it “may just be the master stroke that wins The Block”.
But there’s just one thing standing in the way of the couple and the $100,000 prize money – their fellow competitors.
Having voted for Deb, Andy, Tess and Luke gaining access to their rooftops earlier in the season, stylish grandads Mitch and Mark are confident their plans to install a pool won’t be a problem with most of the Blockheads.
But after an explosive body corporate meeting with mixed results, it’s game on – for everyone.
“I guess if it’s a decision based certainly on, ‘We want to win and we don’t want you to win’, we certainly will be playing hard for the next five weeks,” Mark, 57, tells the assembled contestants.
Mitch and Mark think it’s clear the other teams are there just for the money.
“They’re scared that this would mean we’d win,” he tells TV WEEK. “It’s as simple as that. They know it’s a $100,000 decision.”
“When the shoe was on the other foot, we didn’t even need to think about it,” Mitch, 56, adds.
Mitch and Mark share their plans in the body corporate meeting.
Mitch and Mark’s close friends and next-door neighbours, Tess and Luke, are of two minds about the pool.
“We weren’t prepared to shut the boys down straight away,” Luke, 30, explains.
“But it’s hard being told you’re not going to finish when your neighbours can afford to put in a pool.”
Luke says Mark’s comment about “playing hard” rattled the Blockheads.
“They’ve changed up their floor plan, delivered different spaces… it’s almost as if they’re the only ones allowed to play the game,” he says.
El’ise, 33, says Mitch and Mark were on “solo ground” at this point in the comp.
“It wasn’t a team effort anymore,” she says. “That’s when we realised they were really in it for the game. They were being ruthless and didn’t care as long as they survived.”
The fallout surrounding #poolgate was a turning point for Mitch.
He says he and Mark felt like “victims of the Mean Girls”, adding, “I was foolish to believe this ‘friends for life’ crap.”
“Others were allowed to do sh** to us, but if we did anything, we didn’t have the same grace,” he says.
The Pool that caused a bunch of Block drama.
Elsewhere on The Block, Tess and Luke are facing a dire situation of their own. With little to no budget left, their miracle arrives in the shape of a fully self-contained apartment.
Luke says their decision to create the space was a “last-ditch effort” to get a room win, and more importantly, secure them some more money for the rest of the competition.
“I think it’ll put us in the running to have a standout home,” he explains. “We definitely don’t have the money to do it, but it’s a last-ditch effort. We needed something to separate our house from the rest.”
Emotions are running high not just for the Blockheads, but for the judges too. At the upcoming studio reveals, Shaynna Blaze is brought to tears.
“I’m emotional, teary,” Shaynna, 56, tells fellow judges Darren Palmer and Neale Whitaker. “I just think you know when a house is built with love. I think that’s what I’m connecting with at the moment.”
Shaynna cries with joy.
The Block airs Monday to Wednesday, 7.30pm, and Sunday, 7pm, Nine Network.
