My Say with Dianne Butler

NOBODY on The Block, Scott Cam is saying in his best least larrikin voice, was prepared for the "sudden departure" of one of their mates.

mark & duncan

NOBODY on The Block, Scott Cam is saying in his best least larrikin voice, was prepared for the "sudden departure" of one of their mates.

Sudden departure? Yikes. That sounds like funeral industry code. It isn't. Mark of Mark and Duncan (you'll notice nobody calls them the Two Fat Tradies anymore, especially not now) has had a "health scare". And sure, none of the contestants probably was prepared for it, but we were. Nine showed select grabs of Monday night's episode, including the ambulance, in a "highlights" package at the start of the series.

So far I've only seen Monday night - when it happens - and Tuesday - the aftershock - but Scott Cam says it's too early to say if it was a "full blown heart attack".

My feeling, based on the show's reaction to it, is it isn't. The fact that Nine promoted it, for one thing. You'd like to think if it was a serious heart attack, or any kind of heart attack, Nine would resist using it as an advertising tool. Plus Mark was upright and functioning and managing a therapeutic lager when Nine had a Block PR event in Melbourne last week.

But look, Nine was in a bad spot here.

Pretend nothing had happened and someone hears about it and they look like they're covering it up. And then they'd have to explain why someone who isn't Mark was working on Mark and Duncan's house.

And spoiler alert: the crisis grows on Tuesday when Phil announces he's decided to lend a hand. Phil who can't drive a nail. Phil's the one most affected by Mark's leaving. "All the boys would come down and we'd all have a beer and a chat and all old school stuff, you know?" Phil's saying this to his wife, Amity.

Drinking with friends is old school? Only to Phil. Clearly part of him has died at some point - was it when he got married to Amity? Or when they moved to Adelaide? Either way, he's not the man to help Duncan finish the house. Duncan's wife Jen isn't either. I'm reminded of Scott Cam's interview with Karl Stefanovic the day The Block started, when he said there was no way he'd do The Block with his wife, or with anyone. So Duncan is sat down in front of a large book of photos and asked to go through it and pick a face, the way they do on Law & Order or, I don't know, eHarmony.

Jen finds she has pressing commitments with their children and after a morning of phone calls for her husband it's with no reluctance she takes off her Mitre 10 T-shirt and leaves the set. This show is always an angle grinder away from a law suit. It's amazing nothing really major has happened on it. Of course, it's not over yet.