Review

Dirty Hands is a very cleverly written episode in that it does a lot with very little. In many ways I am referring to the show's budget here. Numerous major characters were not present in this episode and also the entire set for the tylium ship wasn't in fact a set, but an actual factory that was borrowed to do this episode. I find these details to be so remarkable because in this recent string of stand alone episodes and in most of the season as a whole there has been an overall drop in episode quality and one of the reasons attributed to this was that the budget was blown quite a bit during the New Caprica arc at the beginning of the season.

This episode however is an example of just how good an episode which uses very little budget comparatively can be. It also demonstrates just how well a stand alone story can be constructed out of an issue that seems to come out of nowhere. One of the criticisms I had lined up when going into this episode is that in A Day in the Life, Tyrol and Cally's lives are saved by Adama but now a week later they're completely at odds and I just didn't buy it. But when you watch this episode, by the time the strike/mutiny actually happens, the characters have completely earned that moment.

The essential lure of this episode is how well it highlights class structure related social problems in colonial society and in the ragtag fleet, much like the way The Woman King dealt with racism, but in a much better way with a much larger scope. While RDM refers to Baltar's book as Baltar's version of Mein Kampf, I tend to look at it as Baltar's version of Das Kapital, as what Baltar is talking about seems more Marxist in origin than anything Hitler wrote about.

Indeed, the whole episode is very overtly about class struggles. Cally even goes so far as to say that she and the rest of the deck gang are not a part of the "ruling class" and that they are not afforded certain luxuries as a result. Great details were sprinkled throughout the episode to highlight differences in class structure. Some details were large, such as Roslin being completely aware of horrid working conditions and the use of child labor and not seeing too much of a problem with it nor speaking of any kind of running plan in place to make it better. Other details were small, like placing a scene depicting Adama and Roslin quietly sipping wine in front of Tyrol just after he returned from his first and rather traumatic experience on the tylium ship.

The greatness of the episode doesn't end there though. Right from the teaser, we're just loaded with goodies. I loved how they actually showed Roslin looking out the window of Colonial One just as the raptor was about to collide with her ship. While I wish they didn't cut over the actual collision, it was a very creepy detail to end the teaser on. Also creepy was getting to hear Baltar's original accent and his description of his origins on Aerelon. What a fantastic acting job there.

The ending was the only thing about the episode that I thought wasn't particularly remarkable, though it wasn't particularly weak either. Adama's threat to Tyrol during the strike was certainly compelling for all that it was reckless, however as the episode began to resolve itself, it began to lose steam quickly. This isn't much a problem though, because the ending was very short. And while the final scene wasn't great, it was a pretty good scene. It's nice to see progress is being made toward overcoming these class structure problems, but all this "let's be friends" stuff at the end felt rushed to me. A better ending wouldn't have resolved anything, but merely laid the first stones toward a resolution. A proper resolution would be crafted amidst a series of future episodes.

Suffice it to say, if this is the last episode dealing with class structure problems in the ragtag fleet, it would be a big mistake. Setting all that aside, however, this episode stands very well on its own, being one of the better offerings of the season.