As stressed-out contestants battled to get their rooms finished for judging, Adam unwittingly became the most hated man on The Block.

First, his wife Jolene took him to task for treating her like his personal errand girl. Then, Tayla, Courtney, and Sev turned on him simply for acting “too happy” at the end of a gruelling day. Tayla interpreted his laid-back cattle station manager’s pretend underarm bowling routine as solid evidence that he was almost finished with his room and taking sadistic pleasure in everyone else’s misery. This wild conspiracy theory was backed up by Courtney, who “got a vibe” that Adam would oppose Rick’s plan to organise a body corporate meeting to demand extra working hours.

A crestfallen Rick had decided to lobby for more time after failing his first plaster inspection. Under this year’s rules, contestants must get all plasterwork officially approved — much like waterproofing — before any further progress can be made. Rick’s tiny 5mm error cost him hours he didn’t have, especially with a strict tools down enforced at 3pm on Saturday.

“I’m the most experienced one here and I am getting my a*** kicked,” he moaned, desperately rallying the troops to join his cause.

RELATED: Everything you need to know about The Block 2026

Block 2025 losers get giant windfall

Daylesford Block house opens as holiday rental

Take two: Rick removes plaster that had a half centimetre measurement error before embarking on a campaign to allow extended working hours.

The sole voice of dissent was Adam. It wasn’t that he didn’t want extra time; he just wasn’t convinced that holding a meeting the day before room reveals to demand something that breached council policy was a great use of their rapidly dwindling hours.

Another major time sink was the first of host Shelley Craft’s weekly site inspections. As sunny and reassuring as Shelley always is, when you’re barrelling toward a room reveal, standing around for a chinwag about where your life choices went wrong is the absolute last thing on anyone’s wish list.

Touring each house, Shelley and co-host Scott Cam reminded the teams that a cool $20,000 was up for grabs this week — $10,000 for the winning room, and $10,000 for the best budgeter. With a recommended budget of around $10,000, some teams were playing it smart, like Rick and Tayla who estimated their outlay at $5000. Others, like Courtney and Sev — who threw financial sanity out the window to win the room and secure their beloved House 4 — splurged closer to $20,000.

To win the budgeting prize, each team had to guess their exact weekly spend on the spot. Being put on the spot sent the normally super-organised Jolene into an absolute tailspin. “I look silly in there, which pisses me off,” she complained after blanking on Shelley and Scott’s

questions and before warning Adam he was about to wear her full wrath.

Dan watches in horror as Wyatt does his first ever painting.

“Adam and his fellas just have me running around so I get back here and they go: ‘Oh, we forgot this!’ so then I have to go back to Bunnings,” a fed-up Jolene vented. “I did seven trips yesterday. I am basically running in circles being their lackey and I am not getting my shit done.”

Having sparked a marital spat, Shelley moved on to stir up trouble at House 2. After praising Chantel and Wyatt on their choice of wardrobes, zeroing in on the bronze handles, the bubbly host’s smile faded when Chantel revealed she was ditching them in favour of gold.

“Have you done any research on quiet luxury?” Shelley asked, backing up her point by firing up an AI search on her phone.

“Gold is going to look beautiful, but it might not say quiet luxury. It might say loud luxury,”

Chantel breaks down after a tough day deliberating between quiet and loud luxury.

Chantel pondered, instantly spiralling.

Rattled by the critique, Chantel bolted off to GlobeWest to hunt down new bedside tables that would match her original bronze handles, leaving Wyatt to run the site alone. Annoyed that she was wasting precious time shopping, Wyatt spent two hours brooding over her absence pausing only to heat up another microwave meal — before finally picking up a paint roller.

“I probably should have done some research first,” he admitted as he splashed paint everywhere while foreman Dan looked on in utter bemusement.

“I just started rolling paint on the ceiling without cutting in.”

Shelley threw a cat among the beige pigeons in House 3, too. Upon learning of Sev and

Courtney’s plan to smother the walls and cupboards in micro-cement (a concept that had already sent the Freedom wardrobe rep into a tizzy), an incredulous Shelley took in the wooden ceiling feature and ruched bedhead before asking Sev: “Aren’t you an interior designer? There’s a lot of heroes in this room already and it’s a small space.”

Scott and Shelley are incredulous at Courtney and Sev’s budget blowout and plans to ruin their wardrobes with a layer of microcement.

When Shelley realised they didn’t even want to keep the house they were over-designing, she scoffed: “Well, what are you doing all this for?”

When pressed on their budget, Courtney confessed she had no idea, having adopted a strict “money is no object” stance to secure House 4.

After crunching some emergency math, she guessed they’d spent around $18,100.

“You can’t do that. If you are given an estimate of $10k and you spend $20k, you will only last five weeks,” Scotty warned of their go-big-or-go-home gamble. Unfazed, the girls insisted their high-risk strategy would ultimately win them The Block. Time will tell.

MISSED AN EPISODE? HERE’S ALL OUR RECAPS SO FAR

Episode 1: First tears shed on season 22 of The Block

Episode 2: ‘I will shut you down’

Episode 3: ‘I won’t help them again’