Battlestar Galactica - Dirty Hands

Union episode has Tyrol realizing that the working force producing Tylium are tired, overworked, in poor working conditions with machinery in dire need of repairs. Baltar’s “book” (essentially a sort-of auto-biography on his failures and accomplishments, including his roots, arising out of poverty on a farming colony to the privileges of Caprica) escapes from his cell thanks to his lawyer and into the working class. Roslin, pissed off, arrests the Tylium operations manager and then his supervisor for missing pressure seals and refusing to start up the machinery needed to refine the material into fuel. This episode is mostly about Tyrol and his efforts to help the poor workers, hoping to negotiate with Roslin and Adama about rights for those who seem to have very little. This even includes perhaps offering alternatives to the disenfranchised, and the children born from them. When you see the elderly and kids/teens “on the line” (an accident that results in a kid’s hand injury stirs Tyrol’s anger), sweaty, dirty, disheartened workers with seemingly no options available to them besides “dirty work”, what Tyrol sees has impact. He was once their voice on New Caprica, and now they need him again. A “general strike”, when Tyrol shuts the refinery down, results in his arrest and Adama threatening to execute the strikers (including Cally) if he doesn’t call it off. However, this strike does “strike a chord” and Roslin agrees to listen to Tyrol and work on better conditions for all the workers, including less time on the line, even forcing those with cushier jobs to “get their hands dirty”. Baltar’s scene when Chief visits his cell is great stuff: Baltar “switching accents” and truly proving to him that he was once “milking cows and shoveling manure” by elaborating on the life on that colony is indeed quite a revelation! Very political episode of BG, but Baltar’s influence, considering his state of being on the ship, is starting to once again spread. Seeing "knuckle draggers" (Seelix was denied the chance to be a Viper pilot despite passing the appropriate exams) getting the chance to prove themselves elsewhere and just any progress for others seemingly trapped in the same jobs as their families / colonies is a positive sign. [2.5/5]