Week two on The Block begins with one team holed up in the sharehouse refusing to come to site or answer calls.
Wyatt and Chantel were accused by Scott Cam of blowing their budget by more than 100 per cent at last night’s judging and they’re furious. With good reason as it turns out, because the accusation was a result of a computer inputting error which saw their builder’s invoice put into the system twice.
As the other teams choose their houses – a process which somehow ends up with every team happy, including the losers Rick and Tayla – Wyatt and Chantel are telling their builders to pack up and go home as they’re quitting the show.
Refusing to speak to anyone on the production they instead make accusations via the show’s on-site psychologist, who is acting as a go-between, that the error was made on purpose.
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Chantel and Wyatt are determined to leave The Block.
The cynical among us might wonder if this outsized reaction to an accounting error might be a way of making last week’s cheating scandal – in which Wyatt and Chantel were caught redhanded paying their carpenter to paint in a breach of perhaps the best known Block rule of all – go away.
In any case, Wyatt and Chantel seem set on their decision to leave the show.
“I said to Wyatt it feels like everyone is gaslighting me, everyone is in on it and I don’t feel I want to continue,” Chantel said.
“We feel most of the people on the production are trying to twist things and make us look bad,” Wyatt added.
He tells Simon he and Chantel will accept nothing other than an admission the accounting error was not in fact an error but a deliberate attempt to humiliate them.
“It was not a mistake. That is a crock of s**t, so if they don’t own that shit right now then it’s not happening. We don’t want a sorry it was a mistake, we want sorry, we stitched you up,” Wyatt says.
“I’m happy to be here to make a house with my friends and go through the highs and lows. I’m not here to make reality TV,” he adds.
Dude, what?
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Scott Cam and Julian Cress wait for Wyatt and Chantel to deign to meet them.
Scott Cam and show co-creator Julian Cress wait in the sharehouse pergola to deliver their mea culpa and when Wyatt and Chantel are coaxed out of the house Wyatt declines an invitation to sit and instead stands towering over everyone else while claiming Scott Cam has made him look like “a piece of s**t”.
The pair believe production should have refilmed the judging session minus the accusation they’d blown their budget, but Cress points out the mistake wasn’t sorted out until the day after.
Chantel and Wyatt seem fixated on the idea that they’ve been made out to be liars on national TV, but Cam and Cress argue that the very scene being filmed right now is using national TV to confirm the pair’s innocence.
They still require the afternoon to think about it before sense, and Wyatt’s mum prevails.
“In a really nice way she tells you to grow up and move on,” Wyatt says.
What Wyatt’s mum said.
Wyatt standing over Julian Cress and Scott Cam at the tense meeting over the budget snafu.
While most of the drama this episode had nothing to do with renovating, on site the other contestants are tackling their main bathrooms under the looming pressure of having the space waterproofed by Tuesday, as opposed to the usual Wednesday deadline of other seasons.
The teams toast Chantel and Wyatt’s decision to stay.
Most teams are making changes to their rooms. Courtney and Sev are ditching two square skylights for a rectangular one. Carl the Velux skylight rep had told foreman Dan that were would be no skylight changes tolerated this season, but he caves at the first request, which is either a testament to Courtney’s determination or Carl’s lack of spine in the face of a determined woman.
Other teams are removing doors which open from their bathrooms to the side of the house or deleting internal doors and windows.
In short, everyone is creating extra work in a week that’s going to be a nightmare to finish.
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’
Episode 4: ‘You will only last five weeks’
Episode 5: Block couple ready to quit after scandal
