Series / Jeremiah

The Badass Longcoat Brigade

"What did any of us ever do to you? What did the whole fucking world do to you that we deserve all of this? I mean, come on, the locusts and the death of the first-born wasn't good enough for you anymore, so now it's the death of the eldest? The death of heroes? You know what? Fuck you. Because we're not just gonna lay down and die down here. You want to finish off the job? Come down here! Do it yourself. You send the Angel of Death, you better give him one hell of a big sword, because I tell you what, we are gonna kick his ass all the way back to the great white fucking throne. And then we're coming for you."

—Jeremiah, to God

Jeremiah is a Post Apocalyptic television series that aired on Showtime from 2002 to 2004. It was (very loosely) adapted from the French-Belgian comic book series Jeremiah. It was directed by J. Michael Straczynski and starred Luke Perry and Malcolm-Jamal Warner. The series ended after two seasons when JMS quit, citing too much Executive Meddling on the part of MGM, and the network elected not to continue without him.

In the early 21st century, a supervirus known as "the Big Death" was unleashed across the planet: highly communicable, short incubation period and one-hundred percent fatal to anyone who had reached the age of puberty or higher. Within six months, the population had been decimated and the only survivors were the pre-pubescent children, who somehow had to rebuild a society they never fully knew. Fifteen years later, one such survivor is Jeremiah (Perry), who travels between the rural, low-tech communities that have cropped up in the intervening years and searches tirelessly for something called "Valhalla Sector", a place his father once spoke of as a possible refuge against the Big Death.

During his travels, Jeremiah befriends fellow wanderer Kurdy (Warner), colony leader Markus Alexander (Peter Stebbings) and possible prophet Mr. Smith (Sean Astin), and gets caught up in an attempt to rebuild the United States of America, a brewing conflict with those who'd attempt to seize power for themselves and a possible recurrence of a new and even more dangerous plague.

---

This series provides examples of:

• Action Survivor: Jeremiah, the primary protagonist and the show's namesake.
• After the End: All of the adults died 15 years ago, and the now-grown-up survivors are struggling to rebuild.
• A God Am I: A very charismatic and intelligent man pulls this. It ends with a little over a hundred daisy cutters going off under him.
• All Asians Know Martial Arts: At least twice - Lee Chen, previously not much more than a desk jockey, pulls this out of nowhere, as does a female underground leader in Season 2. Somewhat justified in Lee Chen's case given the mention that he wasn't from Thunder Mountain, and spent time surviving on his own outside before being recruited by them.
• All Guys Want Cheerleaders: The season 1 premiere and finale show that Theo’s engineers enjoy having their prostitutes or girlfriends wear old cheerleading uniforms.
• The Alliance: Much of Season 2 is spent building one of these centered around Thunder Mountain and then defending it against various new threats.
• An Aesop: The entire series has a few overarching ones, the principle one being 'blind faith in anything is bad'.
• Androcles' Lion: In To Sail Beyond the Stars, Kurdy is being chased by several gunmen and encounters an impoverished and homeless young mother who he gave food to and then acted as a midwife for when she went into labor. She lets him hide under her sleeping bag, saving his life.
• Armies Are Evil: The more militaristic a faction is, the more likely that it (or at least its leader) is antagonistic, even the major in charge of Thunder Mountain during the initial pandemic. Marcus's flashback shows him implementing quarantine measures with a Lack of Empathy and when they fail, he flees to the Valhalla Sector and remorselessly becomes their enforcer. Additionally, one of his soldiers spreads the virus into the bunker while looting dead bodies outside.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In the first part of the finale, Sims initially disbelieves Markus's claim that his leader, Daniel, is an Invented Individual until Markus says that if that's true, then how is it that he, a man who has never been within several states of Daniel's territory, knows that Sims has never met the man who gave him command of the army?
• Babysitter Friendship:
  • A Family of Choice group in "And the Ground, Sown with Salt" includes a girl who was orphaned in her infancy by the Big Death and her former babysitter turned adoptive mother (who was just young enough to survive the Big Death).
  • In "City of Roses", Kurdy encounters a woman who babysat him when she was thirteen and he was six, and they greet each other happily and discuss how she spent days trying to find him after his parents died.
• Back-Alley Doctor: Every known surgeon in the world died when the Big Death killed most adults, so the few doctors shown in the show tend to have been kids during the pandemic who don’t have either the training or supplies that doctors fifteen years earlier would have had.
  • "The Bag" features a traveling doctor who only has enough medical supplies to fit in the eponymous bag and claims to have learned basic medicine while watching his doctor father work. He later admits that he lied about actually paying much attention to those lessons but he is still skilled enough to save at least one Imperiled in Pregnancy patient.
  • In "Things Left Unsaid Part 2", one of the former nerds Theo has learning all of the old basic scientific principles has enough general medical knowledge to operate on a wounded Elizabeth after she is shot by Valhalla Sector soldiers, while using the girlfriend/prostitute he was with when Kurdy and Elizabeth showed up as his assistant. He fails to save Elizabeth, who has an hours-old serious wound that a fully equipped team of modern doctors would be necessary to treat.
• Badass Normal: Jeremiah and Kurdy both qualify: they're tough, smart, hard to beat, and have survived on their own for 15 years despite the dangers of the new world.
• Big Bad: Daniel is set up as one, although it's eventually subverted in that there is no Daniel, he's a computer-generated figurehead propped up by a group of master manipulators. The real danger is the idea of Daniel, combined with Sims.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Libby spends the first half of season 2 being a snarky, eager-to-please Genki Girl and Wide-Eyed Idealist. But once she's revealed as The Mole for the Valhalla Sector, she watches Sims killing and kidnapping townspeople she has just befriended and then compliments his efficiency, while also mocking Smith for his eccentric reputation after he catches her spying and trying to kill him even after he shows a desire not to hurt her and is willing to let her go.
• Blind Seer: In "Tripwire", Damien has at least one blind eye (the other might have partial sight) due to being prematurely born to a dying mother. He is said to have such good instincts about who to trust that the townspeople insist on having him accompany whoever they elect leader. He also correctly insinuates that Markus is in danger of dying within a minute of meeting him.
• Book Burning: The plot of one episode is centered around preventing a cult from doing this to the entire collection of an old public library, which with the loss of knowledge after the Big Death has become a vital repository of knowledge.
• Boot Camp Episode: A lot of "The Question" features Kurdy training newly recruited soldiers (who have all survived years of Apocalypse Anarchy but are mostly indisciplined) who The Alliance needs to to counter Daniel's aggression. Rather than be a Drill Sergeant Nasty, Kurdy focuses on getting the mixed bag of cynics who Got Volunteered, idealists who Jumped at the Call, and Punch Clock Heroes just there for a steady supply of food to work as a team.
• Born After the End: Since all of the (initially known) survivors of The Virus had yet to hit puberty during the disaster, all of the second generation survivors (including guest character children of two main characters) were born after society collapsedand are more self-sufficient and wary as a result. They aren't the focus of the show, but the ones in “Red Kiss” view Jeremiah and Kurdy as angels and the Villain of the Week as a vampire largely due to an arcade game in their community. The finale reveals that many, if not all, of the children born after the big death are displaying higher IQs than normal, which is suggested to be either evolutionary or a divine boon to compensate for the losses humanity has suffered.
• Cargo Cult:
  • In an episode of season 2, one of these is shown. They worship an old, pre-calamity house, and kidnap people to force them to live a pre-calamity lifestyle while they watch on television. This is treated as a religious exercise by them, and they believe it will restore the previous world if they are dutiful enough.
  • Seen in passing in the 2nd episode, where Jeremiah and Kurdy drive past a bunch of cultists who are reverently holding vigil around a broken telegraph pole.
  Jeremiah: So, er, what are you doing?
  Cultist: Waiting for a call.
• Cartwright Curse Anyone Kurdy or Jeremiah dates dies or gets Put on a Bus.
• Closest Thing We Got: Most people handling jobs with any specialized skills are fairly self-taught, given how they were kids when nearly all of the world's adults died. One such example is Reese Davenport from "The Bag", who sells his skills as a doctor. The limited skills he has come from being made to watch his emotionally distant doctor father at work before the Big Death and reading a medical book.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: The remnants inhabiting Valhalla Sector are quite adept at both the physical and psychological versions of this.
• Communications Officer: One episode features Thunder Mountain's radioman, Jacob. He uses his position to contact his sister, who lives elsewhere, but inadvertently feeds information about their operations to a Wasteland Warlord who has his sister prisoner.
• Cult Defector:
  • In "And the Ground, Sown with Salt", most if not all of the workers who are forced to worship Godhood Seeker Michael are happy to flee his town with Jeremiah and Kurdy in the climax. Michael's own girlfriend helps them by blowing up herself, Michael, and his troops after accepting how dangerous he is.
  • The Army of Daniel, which is is devoted to conquest and the veneration of their mysterious leader, experiences a few defections over the second season.
    • Karl from "Voices in the Dark" and Dr. Monash from "The Face in the Mirror" are both former members of the Army's leadership who have defected and made ties with the resistance movement trying to bring down the regime. However, they also both zigzag the role since they aren't really followers of the cult-like Army's beliefs as they are people who helped start the adulation of Daniel rather than buying into it themselves. Monash even knows that there is no Daniel and it is implied Karl does to.
    • In the finale, a Mook Lieutenant overhears Sims admit that Daniel isn't real but that he doesn't care during a fight with Jeremiah, and leads his command post in a mass Mook–Face Turn.
• Despair Event Horizon: Megan after killing almost everyone in Valhalla, followed with her being Driven to Suicide.
• Deus ex Machina: In "The Question", Mr. Smith offers one guaranteed miracle from God if Marcus, Kurdy, and Jeremiah ask for it and wait at an appointed place in time. In the end, Mr. Smith is the only one to do so and the only one to receive his miracle. Then again, bringing someone Back from the Dead, eliminating all weaponry from the planet, and having Jeremiah personally chew out God face-to-face was... probably not something the show would want to do anyway. Note that, as with everything else Mr. Smith does, the question of whether this was actually divine intervention or not is deliberately left open.
• Disaster Democracy:
  • The main character and co. encounter a hidden remnant of the US government in season two. It seems they have kept this going in a bunker, with adults safe from the virus, duly voting on a President each election year. However, they turn out to be very dictatorial nonetheless, with the quality of the elections left unclear.
  • Markus shared some of his decision-making authority at Thunder Mountain with an eight-member council, although they rarely appear onscreen. A couple episodes mention there is a council election every year, although whether this means since the original pandemic or since they started reaching adulthood is unclear.
• Disaster Scavengers: The entire world, since not many people are making new food and goods.
• Divided States of America: The US government (or some people claiming to be the government, at any rate) have been undercover in Valhalla all this time.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Lauren impersonates her twin sister Erin to have sex with Jeremiah. It's Played for Laughs, and he doesn't mind aside from wanting to know which it was (Erin refuses to say), but just imagine if the genders were reversed.
• The Elites Jump Ship: The U.S. government officials who caused the Big Death while trying to make biological weapons promptly fled to one of the only bunkers capable of surviving that as almost all other adults in the world died.

• Et Tu, Brute?: In "Thieves Honor", Theo is caught off-guard and rattled when Sam and Keith, the head of her enforcers and technicians respectively, side with the coup against her after being her trusted companions and confidants in most of her previous scenes.
• Everybody Lives: A small number of the show's thirty-five episodes end without anyone dying.
  • "Mother of Invention" is the first episode where no one dies or is even injured, regardless of their moral alignment (minus one character talking about how her family died in the Big Death).
  • While characters get beaten up in "Ring of Truth", "A Means to an End", and "Out of the Ashes", no one dies in those episodes.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • General Ripper Sims and Jeremiah The Hero have a few parallels in their characters. Both have had violent pasts filled with lots of trouble, like wearing Badass Longcoats, enjoy some of the finer things in life (with Jeremiah, this is embodied by him being The Pornomancer, while Sims is more of a Wicked Cultured type), and serve as the main subordinate of a powerful and far-reaching faction leader. Most significantly, in the finale, Sims is shown writing a letter and then disposing of it by letting it drift down a river, similar to how Jeremiah writes letters to his missing father (and later, the late Libby Kaufman) and then burns them as a form of therapy, and in the hope they will read those letters, somewhere.
  • Sims is also an Evil Counterpart to Mr. Smith. He has no first name while Smith's (apparently self-given) first name is Mister, so they are mainly referred to by their similarly sounding surnames. And each believes he is on a Mission from God, although Smith is a Martial Pacifist who serves the diplomacy-seeking Thunder Mountain, while Sims feels that his mission gives him cart blanche to slaughter all of his enemies in the name of Daniel.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When an adult survivor of the Big Death turns up working for the villainous Valhalla Sector, Jeremiah recognizes his military bearing. Erin tries to explain why this doesn't make sense, only to trail off at the end as she realizes the implications of what she's saying.
  Erin: You can't have military without a command structure, without resources, hardware, a base of operation and enough weapons to...
• Faceless Goons: The ruthless, well-trained, and heavily armed Valhalla Sector soldiers throughout season one usually wear ski masks or hazmat suits. This may be to hide how at least some of them are too old to have survived the Big Death by normally means and must have a Hidden Elf Village.
• Fake Guest Star: Markus is The Alliance leader and is in almost every episode of season 2, but isn't in the opening credits.
• Fallout Shelter Fail: Discussed in "Things Left Unsaid Part 2". Conspiracy Theorist Wylie discusses real life bomb shelters and government bunkers that became abundant during the Cold War and thoroughly mocks how most of them provided little real defense against a chemical or nuclear attack. He points out that radiation takes a while to go away, most bunkers can only hold so much food, and even if a bunker survives an initial explosion, radiation or airborne diseases can still get in with the air. He notes that there are only three bunkers he is aware of that were really designed to ride out a storm, and at least two of those bunkers, Thunder Mountain and the Valhalla Sector, have no way to stop the spread of the Big Death virus once a single person brings it inside. The otherwise secure Valhalla Sector (which does at least last 15 years after the original outbreak) suffers especially badly since the time-controlled lock on its doors keeps anyone from having a chance of getting out in time.
• Fan Disservice: Most of the nudity in the show is of the Fanservice variety, but in "Man of Iron, Woman Under Glass", the only character to get a topless scene is a woman who has just been gang-raped.
• First-Name Basis: Thunder Mountain characters use their full names more freely than people outside of their Hidden Elf Village (although there are some exceptions, like Cord Geary from "Red Kiss" and Jimmy Holcomb and the Davenport brothers from "The Bag").

  Theo: Our last names died with the old world.

• Foreshadowing:
  • Mr. Smith seems to be aware of several characters' deaths before they happen.
  • In "Deus ex Machina", Jeremiah and Theo talk about Michael, and Jeremiah shows skepticism about whether he is real or a myth, even if that belief is seemingly dispelled by what people know about Michael.
  • In "Voices in the Dark", Karl, a defector from the Army of Daniel, describes himself as a former political advisor and says that he helped make Daniel into the leader he is, although he is reluctant to be more specific. A later episode reveals that Daniel is an Invented Individual who his supposed inner circle literally made up as as a perfect leader.
  • In "Running on Empty", Sims talks about how much they need Daniel and obliviously notes that if they didn't have a man like Daniel, they would need to invent him.
• Gender Is No Object: The collapse of civilization means that women have to be just as badass as men to survive.
• General Ripper:
  • In the season two premier, General Waverly is the highest ranking Valhalla Sector military officer and is the most passionate advocate behind recreating the Big Death to kill the grown-up children who survived the first pandemic and are challenging the Sector's power monopoly. He also tortures Jeremiah with electric shocks and spends his last moments before dying unrepentantly ranting about how he could have conquered the whole world if not for the intervention of Jeremiah and the others.
  • Sims is the Frontline General of the Army of Daniel, casually burns towns that are in negotiations with his enemies, and admits that he enjoys killing. While he does have an extremely Dark and Troubled Past and is Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life, when he learns that all of his atrocities are based on a lie, he shows no guilt or introspection and is even excited at the idea that he can use this knowledge to overthrow his superiors.
• God Is Dead:
  • "...And the Ground Sown with Salt" features a Cult/militia leader named Michael, who expresses belief that the billions of deaths in The Plague prove that God is dead. That belief, combined with the amount of power he holds, makes him become determined to replace God.
  • "Red Kiss" features a settlement where (partially due to an old arcade game they found) the children believe that God has died and his angels have descended to Earth to fight evil. They think Jeremiah and Kurdy are two of those angels and that a local kidnapper is a vampire (really, he's a Mad Scientist).
• Half-Breed Discrimination: The black nationalist group Shadow of the Crescent dislike seeing Elizabeth when she comes with Kurdy to forge links with them for Thunder Mountain, because she's light-skinned, of mixed race descent and has a "white" name. Kurdy calls them out on this soundly, noting how many leaders in black empowerment (including the nationalists like Malcolm X) were themselves of mixed race descent, and certainly didn't reject those who were.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: Daniel since he doesn't exist.
• Hero of Another Story: Has its own page.
• Heroic Bystander:
  • Jeremiah and Kurdy have many opportunities to intervene with rapes, robberies, and assaults and save the victims.
  • In the Back Story of "To Sail Beyond the Stars", guest character William witnessed a group of men with flamethrowers burning an inhabited town. While he lacked the weapons to stop them, he did follow them to see where they went and then reached out to a Knowledge Broker tracking the group to try and ensure that their victims got justice.
• Heroic Suicide:
  • In "And the Ground, Sown with Salt", Julie blows herself up to take out a Wasteland Warlord’s arsenal of missiles, and the warlord and his goons.
  • In flashback scenes in "Firewall", Markus's father deliberately exposes himself to the Big Death while going to be with his dying wife so that she can die with a sense of comfort and security.
  • Meaghan (in "Letters from the Other Side Part 2" and Ezekiel's father (in a flashback scene in "Rites of Passage") both take their own lives in an effort to keep the Big Death virus from resurfacing and killing the next generation. The former is a carrier of the virus and the latter is one of its unwilling creators who is being forced to help continue developing it as a bio-weapon.
• Hidden Elf Village:
  • Thunder Mountain, as it is the descendants of NORAD and who they've recruited while hiding their existence.
  • As a dark contrast, Valhalla Sector, as it's the remains of the US government.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Enormously popular apparent Angel Unaware Mr. Smith debuts in the first episode of the second and final season (which is also shorter than season 1).
• Innocuously Important Episode: "And the Ground, Sown with Salt" is a fairly self-contained (albeit bloody and high-stakes) episode. However, "Tripwire" reveals that the Valhalla Sector detected the explosion of Michael's arsenal of military missiles in the climax of the episode, and were frightened and confused enough by what happened to delay their advance west by about a month, buying the heroes valuable time.
• Jerkass: Theo, who is a strong contender for the least likable person in the series. She's not evil, per se (amoral, sure, but not necessarily evil), just incredibly and often deliberately unpleasant.
• Karmic Death: President Evil and most of the population of Valhalla want The Plague so they can kill off their enemies. Hah hah! Boy, do they get it (wiped out by Patient Zero).
• Knowledge Broker: Eddie from "To Sail Beyond the Stars" is an ally of the Thunder Mountain scouts who specializes in gathering information and profiting from it. He lets people use his pool hall for free to pick up gossip to investigate and pass on to other people who will pay for it or share his goals of seeing civilization restored (which will give him a place to spend all of the money he's been accumulating) and stamping out dangerous people. He sometimes works with other people to actively explore information about dangerous and troubling rumors. He also takes money or supplies from people to record their locations and planned travels on a map so that any of their friends or relatives who are looking for them will know where to look if they ever visit the pool hall.
• Luke, I Might Be Your Father: Discussed with Jeremiah and a former lover of his whom he may have fathered a son with. She says that while she could try to calculate the date of conception, she's not going to make her son long for a father who can't be around for him, so we never find out if Jeremiah really was his father or not.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • The religious group from "Journeys End at Lovers Meeting". Did they actually Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence? Or... did they kill everyone out on a boat, to keep the miracle illusion?
  • See also: literally everything related to Mister Smith. Every miracle or instance of divine intervention he witnesses always has a convenient mundane explanation, even if it's a really unlikely one.
• Men of Sherwood: The militia army that Alexander forms in the second season is made of well-trained people who provide a good deterrent against the villains and usually avoid dying in firefights.
• Mission from God: Mr. Smith, possibly also a Cosmic Plaything. "I'm just God's sock puppet, okay? He shoves his hand up my ass and words come out the other end."
• Mole in Charge: Lee Chen, the untrusting Thunder Mountain security chief, was planted in the community as a spy by Devon, although they want to protect the community (albeit by lying to Markus and the others) rather than sabotage it.
• Mysterious Past: Mr. Smith, most likely a Dark and Troubled Past too. "I have some issues ... One of thousands. Would you like to hear them alphabetically or in order of psychic trauma?"
• Nay-Theist: Jeremiah has come to believe God is cruel and uncaring after the hardships he's been through.
• No Name Given: Mister Smith. Or rather, he claims that is his full name. "First name 'Mister,' last name 'Smith.'"
  "So if I was going to introduce you to somebody, I'd say, this is Mr. Mr. Smith?""
• No New Fashions in the Future: Justified - the plague didn't exactly leave many fashion designers alive and kicking.
• Non-Indicative Name: Although Jeremiah, the character the show is named after, is a main character, he is by no means the only one-Kurdy gets as much screen time and dialogue as he does, and there's a whole ensemble of other recurring characters who get nearly as much face time.
• Non-Protagonist Resolver: Jeremiah (whose name is the title), Kurdy, and eventually Mr. Smith are the wandering heroes the show focuses on and Markus is the Big Good, but none of them are primarily responsible for defeating either major villainous force.
  • At the beginning of season 2, Lee Chen and Meghan take out the Valhalla Sector by infecting them with the Big Death and rescue a kidnapped Markus and Jeremiah in the process.
  • While Jeremiah gets a climactic battle with Mr. Sims in the series finale, the rest of the Army of Daniel would have still attacked and killed many heroes if not for a Mook Lieutenant overhearing Sims acknowledge that their revered leader is an invented figurehead, causing that man to spread the word and the soldiers to turn on their leaders.
• Oh, Crap!: The look on Theo's face after angrily proclaiming to the rioting mob that they have no electricity, only for her team of kept geeks to choose that exact moment to test the electrical generator they built.
  Theo: Well, sheeit.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Devon is a brilliant virologist and is also a good radio engineer who sets up communication systems in multiple locations.
• One-Steve Limit: Multiple names are reused in the show.
  • Michael is the name of both Jeremiah‘s brother (who is dead but appears in multiple flashbacks) and the Villain of the Week in "And the Ground, Sown with Salt".
  • William is the name of unrelated characters in two consecutive episodes: a witness to a mass murder in "To Sail Beyond the Stars" and an expectant father in "The Bag".
  • Simon is the name of both the Thunder Mountain Scout who causes Jeremiah and Kurdy to go to the base in the pilot and Jeremiah's Mysterious Protector for season one, although the latter man is known as Ezekiel until flashbacks from "Rites of Passage" reveal his real name. He started calling himself Ezekiel after reading The Book of Ezekiel in The Bible during a traumatic time.
  • Two characters named Gabriel appear two episodes apart. One is a Thunder Mountain scout who accompanies Elizabeth on a mission in "Thieves' Honor". The other is Michelle's son, possibly with Jeremiah, in "Mother of Invention".
  • Jacob is the name of both a Thunder Mountain radio operator in "Thieves' Honor" and a Mook Lieutenant in the Army of Daniel at the end or season 2.
  • There are two characters named Samuel: a Wasteland Elder town in "Tripwire", and an artist Sims has paint his portrait in "State of the Union".
• One-Woman Wail: Used to a regular extent on every episode, to the point that any action in the second season was cause for it.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Played straight (Jeremiah's freaking point-blank gut wound) and subverted (Mr. Smith's arm wound making him permanently crippled there). Of course, given that this is Mr. Smith we're talking about, it's not subverted for long.
• Orphanage of Love: The series finale features a school/orphanage for children who were born out of Teen Pregnancy in the aftermath of the apocalyptic Big Death and are well-educated and cared for physically and emotionally.
• Orphan's Ordeal: Every child on Earth had to deal with surviving on their own after the adults died.
• Parental Abandonment: Again, the entire planet, but made worse since their parents didn't just leave, they died horribly. Often right in front of their children.
• The Plague, which is Only Fatal to Adults. Only fatal to most adults-a very small percentage of the adult population was immune. Only one group of immune adults is encountered over the course of the series, and they're all very old men living in secret disguised as a monastic order.
• The Pornomancer: Jeremiah himself, who manages to sleep with virtually every woman he encounters over the course of the series.
• Pursued Protagonist: The first scene of "Deus ex Machina" (after the recap) shows one of the delegates to the Thunder Mountain convention running through the woods after an ambush and then being hit with a crowbar and taken prisoner by a tribe of serial killers (he is later rescued).
• Put on a Bus: Prior to the halfway point of season 2, Devon leaves to continue his scientific work elsewhere and Theo stops taking part in strategic meetings of The Alliance after she gets pregnant.
• Rage Against the Heavens: One of the best ones ever, after a particularly heroic and innocent person dies. This rant is directed at Michaelangelo's Genesis:
  Jeremiah Are you happy? Are you satisfied? That's how it works, isn't it? You set us up, you take someone like him, and you give him hope, so you can take it away again? What did he do to you? What did any of us ever do to you? What did the whole fucking world do to you, that we deserve all of this? What, the locusts and the death of the firstborn wasn't good enough for you anymore so now it's the death of the eldest? Death of heroes? You know what? Fuck you. Because we're not just going to lay down and die here anymore. You want to finish off the job? Come down here! Do it yourself! You send the angel of death, you better give him one hell of a big sword, 'cause I tell you what; we are going to kick his ass right back to the great white fucking throne! And then we're coming for you. We're coming for you.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Markus, the leader of Thunder Mountain. He tries to form alliances with the other non-hostile communities, works to keep the Big Death from returning, is reluctant to issue harsh punishments and gradually insists on sharing power with other trustworthy individuals so he won't be a dictator.
• Reluctant Mad Scientist:
  • Jeremiah's father and his lab partner Dr. Weil were manipulated into creating the Big Death virus by the U.S. government and are appalled by everything it did. They immediately devoted themselves to trying to undermine the Valhalla Sector from within afterward, although Dr. Weil didn't live long after that.
  • "The Face in the Mirror" has a flashback which shows several other Valhalla Sector scientists being miserable in the work they do for a budding dictatorship and talking about how they want to stop it. Several of them (a team of psychological warfare experts) escape Raven Rock to set up an opposition government of their own. Most of them end up becoming their own antithesises (assuming they were ever genuinely noble in the first place), but Dr. Monash is as appalled by them as he was by the Valhalla Sector and ends up defecting.
• The Remnant: The militaristic Valhalla Sector is made up of government members who avoided dying with the rest of the world's adults by withdrawing to a bunker until the initial plague died out.
• Refusal of the Call: Mr. Smith says this didn't go well for him. It's implied to be an extreme understatement.
• Scenery Porn: There are some pretty impressive shots of mountains and forests in several episodes.
• Scientist vs. Soldier:
  • In the flashbacks in "Firewall", Major Quantrell, the final military leader of Thunder Mountain, and Markus Alexander's CDC scientist father come over blows regarding their attitudes toward what to do in the face of a global pandemic. Quantrell wants to lock down Cheynne Mountain and try to ride things out without making any effort to combat the Big Death. Dr. Alexander is convinced that this won't keep the plague out and wants to let his infected wife inside under quarantine conditions to keep working on a potential cure that he doubts he can find otherwise (not that his chances of finding it anyway are super good).
  • The military forces of the Valhalla Sector want to recreate the Big Death (and a vaccine to protect themselves against it) to kill all of their enemies. Devon, the original reluctant creator of the pathogen, wants no part of this and tries to undermine his leaders/captors, with flashbacks showing that several of the other scientists in the bunker felt the same way.
• Shadow Dictator: Daniel, who has authorized the creation of forced labor camps an is never seen by his people, except for the very top officials. It turns out they invented him, to be the ideal leader.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Julie from "And the Ground, Sown with Salt" is compared to an angel due to her appearance and sense of unease about violence, and wears particularly fancy outfits. However, after turning on her Wasteland Warlord lover (initially out of self preservation and then out of a desire to atone for standing by in silence while he did horrible things), she helps the heroes escape from detention and engages in a shootout with their captors before personally detonating their base’s entire stash of missiles to keep anyone from using them.
• Snake Oil Salesman:
  • Downplayed with traveling doctor Reese and his brother from "The Bag". They use a lot of fancy terms they may not fully understand, have some pretty old medicine bottles, and don't tend to stick around for too long after providing services, but the Reese's remedies and operations do seem to work.
  • In "Red Kiss", apothecary Medicine Joe claims the substandard marijuana he sells is hallucinogenic, libido-boosting, and a blood purifier. He also sells small amounts of blood from kidnapped children as a vaccine against The Virus that killed all of the adults 15 years ago and may return some day. However, given that Medicine Joe was a child during the collapse of civilization, it's possible that. as a result of his limited education, he genuinely believes that his products can do all of that. Jeremiah accuses Joe’s supplier of stoking fear to sell a placebo, although the man claims he is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who has found a necessary cure.
• Sole Surviving Scientist:
  • Devon and Libby look for a cure to The Plague that killed everyone over the age of thirteen from within the Ravenrock Mountain bunker, although their boss plans to misuse their work.
  • Theo sheltered and groomed a bunch of nerds from her school to be this on a small-scale, such as by making a working generator.
  • Season 2 One-Shot Character Frederick, who lives in one of the only areas where adults survived the Big Death, is a psychological warfafe expert who played a large role in creating an fake perfect leader for their faction to act as a charismatic leader against the aggression of the Valhalla Sector.
  • Farralon from "City of Roses" and an unnamed Mad Scientist from "Red Kiss" both survived the Big Death due to being kids and are trying to use blood samples to make a vaccine for in case it returns.
• Someone to Remember Him By: Gender-Inverted in "Tripwire". Blind Seer Damien is the son of a victim of the Big Death who was born just as his mother died of the disease.
• Spare a Messenger:
  • In "Deus ex Machina", a tribe of Serial Killers who refuse to recognize The Alliance kidnap Kurdy and another scout and plan to kill one of them (and lots of innocent civilians they kidnapped) for fun and as an intimidation factor while letting the survivor tell Markus to leave them alone. Kurdy says they can let him and the other man go or neither of them, but the other man is willing to throw Kurdy under the bus and be the messenger. Mr. Smith then emerges from the woods and tries to trade himself for Kurdy, but the main psycho plans to kill both of them anyway. Smith then shares one of his visions from God and makes the killer Go Mad from the Revelation and kill himself and his allies, allowing all of the prisoners to leave safely.
  • In "Running on Empty", Sims kills almost all of a party of Western Alliance members who were distributing wanted posters of him and ties one to a tree to leave him to tell the story. The man defiantly says that sooner or later, his allies will kill Sims. This annoys Sims and causes him to muse out loud that there is more than one way to send a message. He then stabs the man to death and pins one of the wanted posters to his shirt to signify who carried out the massacre.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Typhoid Mary Megan and Markus (whose father examined her before he died), one of the worst cases when you think about it. Markus is trying to rebuild the world that was devastated by the Big Death and keep the virus from returning to devastate the next generation, while Meaghan is a Typhoid Mary carrier of the Big Death who has the potential to either cure the disease or spread it, and can't even touch Markus safely.
• Stranger Behind the Mask: The second parts of both the season 2 premiere and finale reveal the identities of spies for The Valhalla Sector and the Army of Daniel who have been sabotaging Thunder Mountain in serious ways that have been felt in earlier episodes. In both cases, the spies are random soldiers who have never been seen earlier in the show.
• Superpowerful Genetics: Apparently Mr. Smith's daughter also hears the voice of God.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: In "The Long Road", a friendly blonde woman named Sarah who is reverently loyal to Markus handles a lot of the administrative work at Thunder Mountain (in a Deleted Scene she calls herself a liaison between Markus and the council) and greeting new arrivals. She is never seen after the pilot, with the third episode introducing regular character Erin, who resembles Sarah and had the exact same duties and attitude toward Markus as her. Their names even have a couple of the same sounds.
• Take Up My Rover: In the pilot episode, one of Thunder Mountain's scouting teams are killed; the leader, on his final breaths, encourages Jeremiah and Kurdy to take the rover back to Thunder Mountain in their place.
• Taking You with Me: In "Letters from the Other Side Part 2", As General Ripper Waverly dies from the Big Death after Lee Chen and Meghan introduce it to to the Valhalla Sector, he tries to either shoot or infect the imprisoned Jeremiah and Devon before dying. He fails due to being blind from the virus, but makes a darkly impressive effort.
• Tap on the Head: Played heavily, repeatedly, and enforced throughout the series. Including one case where the lead character gets a blow to the head and wakes up more than a day later, with no lingering effects.
• Teen Pregnancy:
  • The Virus making Earth a Teenage Wasteland in the Back Story resulted in there being a lot of kids growing up without birth control, qualified abortionists, or abstinence-enforcing parents, and there are a lot of kids who were clearly conceived when their parents had to have been a lot younger than twenty. Some episodes touch on how frightening and difficult this was for the young parents, such as "Ring of Truth", where a girl who walked out on her partner and baby because she couldn’t handle being a fourteen or fifteen year-old mother wants to re-enter their lives ten years later.
  • In "To Sail Beyond the Stars", Kurdy encounters a character credited as “pregnant girl”, who seems to be in her late teens and is living on the street while approaching her due date and is frightened about having her first child when she doesn’t know how to handle the delivery.
• Teenage Wasteland: The world was this in the immediate aftermath of the plague, with everyone over the age of 13 dead. In the present day, the plague has subsided and the oldest survivors are now in their late 20s, making it not an example of this trope.
• Those Wacky Nazis: Specifically, neo-Nazis; several different groups of them are encountered over the course of the series, and it's mentioned in a throwaway line of background dialogue that one particularly powerful neo-Nazi group controls almost all of Montana.
• Twin Switch: Played with by Erin (Ingrid Kavelaars) and Lauren (Monique Kavelaars) during the episode Moon in Gemini, where one of them sleeps with Jeremiah. He thinks it's Erin at the time, but then becomes uncertain, though neither will say which it was (in the scene we see it's Lauren, who pulls down her hair (it was in ponytails) to appear like Erin, but he doesn't). Interestingly, this was the only time Monique Kavelaars ever acted, while Ingrid does so full-time.
• Typhoid Mary: Megan is an asymptomatic carrier of The Virus. She and Major Quantrell even explicitly refers to herself with this phrase at times.
• Uncertain Doom: Ezekiel is shot by Valhalla Sector soldiers in the season one finale and is never seen again, except in a flashback to when Devon knew him years ago. However, his eyes are still open after he's shot and he is seen thrashing around some after falling, giving some ambiguity to his fate.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Where the heck does Libby get all of those Fanservice outfits? Heck, where does all of Jeremiah's unlimited paper come from?
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee:
  • Zigzagged in the two-parter "Letters from the Other Side". The scene cuts away before Lee Chen reveals his plan to end the war between Thunder Mountain and the Valhalla Sector to Kurdy and Meghan. But Kurdy's horrified expression as he leaves the room? and part 1 ending with Lee Chen telling the Valhalla Sector that Meghan (who is really a carrier) is immune to the Big Death and that they will trade her for Markus and the other prisoners, make it obvious what the plan is even though no one says it out loud until near the end of the next episode. Half of the plan, exposing the Valhalla Sector to the Big Death through Meghan works flawlessly, but getting all of the prisoners out beforehand fails after the Valhalla Sector decide to keep Jeremiah and Devon as hostages as the part 1 cliffhanger. The last minute plan on how to keep them safe from the virus is also discussed offscreen, has very few clues to its workings, and goes off perfectly.
  • "The Face in the Mirror" has an unspoken plan with a short-term payoff (the plan is revealed after less than a minute) when Kurdy is talking to some nearby allies over the radio during a car chase and says he has a plan to escape. The scene then briefly cuts to their pursuer before he witnesses Kurdy's plan (to make him unsure which truck his antagonist is in after they rendezvous) work.
• Vancouver Doubling: For Colorado, Washington, Virginia, and most of the western United States.
• Walking the Earth: As much of it as can be reached from their home base on a single tank of gasoline, anyway.
• Wasteland Elder: Given how The Virus targeted all the adults fifteen years previously, no one left could quite be called an "elder". but there are occasional benevolent settlements led by Wise Beyond Their Years people in their late twenties or early thirties, like Cord Geary in "Red Kiss", Michelle from "The Mother of a Invention", and Shiela from "Crossing Jordan".
• Wasteland Warlord:
  • Jeremiah takes place in a Teenage Wasteland where the kids who survived The Plague have grown up. In the pilot, a woman named Theo runs a small town by running security over a marketplace and using the nerds from her old high school to work on technological innovations and imprisoning and ruthlessly interrogating anyone who crosses her. She ends up run out of town and reluctantly falls in with the main characters.
  • The Remnant forces of Valhalla Sector badly want to be this trope in season 1 and plan to use their cache of weapons to conquer the country, if not the world. However, their fear of being exposed to the Big Death makes them hesitant to leave their survival bunker.
  • Throughout season 2, Daniel is mentioned as a Shadow Dictator who can inspire cult-like devotion even as he sends hundreds if not thousands of people to labor camps and has his army attack towns in negotiation with his rivals. Daniel turns out to be an Invented Individual, but the true leaders of "his" army, the Founders, are fine with crushing anyone who stands between them and control of the country.
  • Several Villain of the Week regional tyrants, such as a book burning redneck, a puritanical zealot who bans people from touching each other, and a Godhood Seeker with weapons from a military base.
• Wham Shot: The pilot has some hooded monks showing Thunder Mountain scout Simon something that was covered by a tarp. He's horrified, and refuses to tell his companion Colin what it was. A flashback from "Things Left Unsaid Part 1" shows why he got so upset. The monks showed him the corpses of two victims of the new form of the Big Death. One of the victims was a baby, meaning that the virus —which once spared children—will now kill anyone who is exposed to it.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Has its own page.
• World Half Full: The setting is an After the End from an outbreak that left behind children below the age of thirteen while killing the rest and subjecting those kids to over a decade of hardscrabble loss and suffering. But nonetheless, the survivors managed to create a functional society and began to thrive once their problems were solved by Jeremiah and his group in their travels. By Season 2, the settlements had managed to restore trade networks and are even on a path to creating The Alliance.

---