Reno Rumble's tortuous final pushes contestants to the edge

The Redbacks and the Blue Tongues, with host Scott Cameretto, prepare to do battle in Reno Rumble. Photo / Martin Philbey

Reno Rumble, which finished in an exhausted orgy of applause and good cheer last night on TV2, is to The Block what cage-fighting is to rippa rugby. What bath salts are to Rheineck. What Slayer is to Mumford and Sons.

While it ended in a happy place, for every manic minute of Monday night's penultimate episode, all we saw was humanity stretched to its absolute limit, all in thrall to the great DIY god in the sky. The show pits the competitors from House Rules and The Block against one another like a renovation-themed Survivor.

The last challenge saw two teams - each a couple - transform an entire house in six days. Six days! The volume of work was impossible and, despite the number of tradies they had on hand to help, the teams barely slept across the span of the final.

Over on TV3, The Block NZ participants were picking houses and dragging mattresses about, thinking working until midnight was hardship. They need to meet Carly and Leighton, the leaders of the Blue Tongues, who did a very good impression of people deep into a brutal bout of polydrug psychosis.

Carly spoke at around 500 words a minute, her mouth hardwired to her brain, every stray thought communicated in a real-time stream of consciousness, like a decaying hard disc reciting its code.

Her partner Leighton staggered around, wobbly but indomitable, his face a mask of plaster dust through which his eyes only occasionally peeked. They were tasked with creating a modern Australian theme, the only visible manifestation of which was a picture of a cockatoo in the hallway.

Next door at the Redbacks' house, the theme was more specific and more problematic. "Contemporary classic," they said, "with a hint of plantation." So new and old with a bit of a slave-owner vibe? What could be more Australian than that?

Luckily, this horrible aesthetic was executed by two of the most loveable larrikins ever to grace our small screens. If Carly and Leighton were the renovation equivalent of crystal meth, Ayden and Jess were LSD; bemused, beaming, oblivious to the chaos around them.

If Carly and Leighton were the renovation equivalent of crystal meth, Ayden and Jess were LSD; bemused, beaming, oblivious to the chaos around them.

Ayden seemed only barely aware that he was in a grand final, at one point taking a spare tradie over to the opposition's house and offering them his services. They were bowled over by the goodwill and accepted. It lasted a matter of minutes, until the head builder on their site got wind of the self-sabotaging generosity and hauled him back.

"I think he just forgot we're in a competition," he said, shaking his head.

The look on Ayden's face at that moment - in fact throughout - was of a man with only the most tenuous grip on reality. While some competitors stole a half-hour's precious nap every so often, Ayden just floated through, as if he permanently existed in a state somewhere between wakefulness and slumber. Perhaps not an ideal situation in which to be making important decisions and handling heavy machinery, but it made for great television.

Reno Rumble functioned as a giant experiment in sleep-deprivation and human will. "Everything has changed," mumbled Leighton afterwards, doubting his ability to return to normal life.

And in this tawdry creation, designed to wring a few more bucks out of the already rampant middle-class renovation mania, the competitors found a liberation. The fact their own houses remained unrenovated - and the prizemoney was barely enough to break ground - seemed neither here nor there.

In the monumental frenzy of this silly little show, the participants found a kind of grace. The final episode's long, slow exhale was a letdown, for sure, but the destination was worth enduring for the moments of bent-but-not-broken humanity on the way.