The Block 2024 episodes 14 and 15 recap: Block builder fired after pay fiasco, Paige and Jesse blow up gives severe ick

1 week ago 6

The Block takes its traditional mid-season swerve into nastiness this week with an unpleasant fight between Courtney and Grant and their builders, and a series of even more unpleasant fights between Paige and Jesse.

Courtney and Grant have been slow to pay their builders. In fact, the tradies haven’t seen a cent since starting work on the show. They’ve already agreed to reduce their week one bill, which Courtney and Grant believed was extortionate, but they’re still waiting for their money.

‘Arrogant’: Blockhead goes on a bender, cop huge judge spray

‘Rip it up’: Block’s biggest bathroom disaster ever

When one of their builders tells foreman Dan they’re still $13,000 out of pocket, and then tells the site barista, word quickly gets back to Courtney and Grant and it’s not long before Grant is blowing a gasket.

Despite his outrage that his honour has been impugned, his claims the bills have been paid are disingenuous.

He only paid the week one bill the night before, meaning it hadn’t landed in his builders’ account yet, and he paid the second week bill only after learning of the site gossip that he hadn’t paid them, and 10 minutes before confronting them for telling people about it.

Grant is fuming his builders told people he hadn’t paid them, despite the fact he hadn’t paid them.

Besides, The Block encourages contestants to pay all their trade bills at the end of each week, so Courtney and Grant are in the wrong whichever way you dice it.

“If there’s a problem you come to me, instead you’ve tried to snake me behind my back,” Grant says. “I’m calling it. Don’t come back on Thursday. Thanks for everything you’ve done but I’m not having you on site. You’re a f***ing snake.”

Courtney is left in tears, with her sacked builders staying around to comfort her but Grant is unrepentant, despite having no Plan B with a guest bedroom still to deliver.

“They all needed to go. I’m not going to have him and his team talk about me behind my back.”

The lesson here? Pay your bills, but also, never tell a barista anything you don’t want the world to know.

Also being thrown off the site is Ricky and Haydn’s waterproofer, who, unbelieveably, has stuffed up their bathroom waterproofing for a second time. It has to be ripped up yet again, and even the relentlessly upbeat Ricky admits “this is not enjoyable” when he hears the news. Reign it in, Ricky.

Courtney and Grant hug it out after Grant sacks their builders.

Tantrums are also being thrown by Paige, whose resting Karen face is on full display when she discovers none of the items she wants from The Block Shop are available, due to her not heeding instructions to order a week or so in advance.

Her meltdown is soundtracked to Radiohead’s Karma Police, as she slags off The Block Shop staff to the other contestants.

Jesse heads off on a long drive to Melbourne to track down some alternatives and when he returns exhausted from 12 hours in the car, the couple have an off-camera but on-mic fight that gives some severe ick.

MORE: ‘Fed up’: Experts warn The Block is facing ‘disaster’ auctions

Savvy splurge: Secret Block property hack exposed

As Courtney points out, the way the pair fight in front of camera and other people is quite different to what she and Grant overhear when the cameras aren’t rolling, and as far as they’re concerned, Paige and Jesse’s fights are one-sided, in Paige’s favour. They seem genuinely concerned for the way Jesse is treated by Paige.

Paige and Jesse’s on-camera fight precedes a truly nasty off-camera one.

With the microphones still on but the cameras gone, an exhausted Jesse points out he spent all day in the car “to make things as easy as possible for us and to take the pressure off you”.

Paige completely loses it, accusing Jesse of being over emotional.

When he tells her he’s on her team she snaps “don’t say that to me, it’s so cringe”. When he replies that he can’t say anything she gives him a sarcastic round of applause.

“Good job. You finally get it. You CAN’T say anything.”

It’s gross and uncomfortable to listen to, and not something any kid fans of The Block, of which there are many, should take any lessons from.

Paige later calls Jesse an idiot and loses her temper yet again during a fishing/cooking challenge when he asks her to get on with the task at hand — cleaning a fish which she’s doing with maximum histrionics, dry-retching and freaking out over a single wasp.

A few of the other couples are worried Paige and Jesse’s relationship might not survive The Block, and with Paige telling Jesse “honestly, I just don’t really feel I can do this for two months”, they might be right.