Although the plot of JEREMIAH has to do with nation-building and the collapse and revival of civilization, the series' major thematic concerns are about the relationships between fathers and sons. (And the focus clearly is on fathers and sons, not parents and children, which may be why the roles of many of the series' female characters are comparatively colorless.)

The first season, of course, is centered on Jeremiah's quest for his father, but the father-son relationship informs each of the principal heroes. Jeremiah is engaged in an actual search for the enigmatic Valhalla Sector, to which he believes his father may have escaped. Similar dynamics motivate both Markus Alexander and Kurdy.

Markus Alexander, the former child prodigy whose father was the lead scientist at Thunder Mountain during the Big Death, has spent his life trying to live up to his dying father's last words (recounted in flashback in the first season Episode 8, "Firewall"). Markus is effectively trying to become his father, and that desire is underscored by his doomed love for the quarantined Meaghan Lee Rose. Not only is their relationship singularly Oedipal--Meaghan is almost, though not quite, old enough to be his mother--their interaction is directly parallel to the final moments of Markus's parents. We saw in flashback in "Firewall" (q.v.) as Markus's mother, infected with the virus, stood outside Thunder Mountain, with his father inside, unable to help her. Markus's entire relationship with Meaghan can be seen as recreating that final moment between his parents, and it's nearly as tragic.

Kurdy, meanwhile, has created a tough, brusque exterior as a way of showing both that he is stronger than his father (whose fate is recounted in flashback in Season One, Episode 7, "City of Roses") and that he is strong enough to not need his father.

Although the fathers are all absent--either dead, in the case of Markus and Kurdy, or missing, as with Jeremiah--the sons maintain an ongoing, anguished, one-sided dialogue with their vanished fathers. This is most explicitly represented by Jeremiah's ritual (primarily in Season One, but continued by force of habit in some of Season Two) of writing letters to his father, which he then burns in acknowledgment that the letters will never be received or answered.

This dialogue is what separates the idealistic heroes of Thunder Mountain from their opponents and rivals, particularly in the first season. The people with whom our heroes clash, from the raiders and petty warlords to their contentious ally, Lee Chen, do not maintain that connection with their departed parents. If they have memories or longings for their parents, those feelings are not mentioned or described onscreen. The thematic point is very clear: their contemporaries are feral children, who do not have fathers; our heroes are orphans, and that distinction is the basis of their moral authority.

That's not to say that the role and image of the father is a positive one. Kurdy, in particular, seems moved much more by anger towards his late parents than love. Indeed, the finale of Season One and the opening of Season Two reintroduce adult survivors in the form of Valhalla Sector, where the figure of the pre-epidemic father is revealed to have feet of clay. The older adults of Valhalla Sector are either evil (the President and his leading general) or compromised (Jeremiah's father, Devon, who is their reluctant pawn), and the series makes it clear in no uncertain terms that the reestablishment of their authority would be evil. The destruction of Valhalla Sector at the end of the Season Two premiere (Ep. 2, "Letters from the Other Side Part Two") becomes in effect an exorcism of the bad fathers, who are destroyed by the final consequences of their short-sightedness and lust for power.

Season Two addresses the three primary father-son relationships of the first season: Jeremiah has found his father and must now deal with the ramifications of that reunion; Markus loses Meaghan and forms a new relationship with a woman his own age; Kurdy is persuaded to become a drill instructor for the Alliance's new army, making him a father figure in his own right. Nevertheless, the father-son theme continues with the introduction of two new and more complex sets of paternal issues.

The principal paternal issues in the upcoming Season Three are more abstracted: Mister Smith and Daniel. Daniel is the enigmatic new enemy of Thunder Mountain, the leader of a large eastern territory. Daniel is a Big Brother-like figurehead, but his real identity is a mystery, and he himself is never seen. His followers act in his name and his image is everywhere, but he doesn't have a real voice. Contrasting that image is Mister Smith's peculiar (and apparently literal) relationship with God. Smith claims to hear and be moved by the word of God, who speaks directly to him, telling him about the future and giving instructions about what he has to do. Although the others are understandably skeptical, Smith does repeatedly show an inexplicable knack for being in the right place at the right time. He often displays knowledge that there is no logical way he could have, and some of his experiences later take a turn toward the genuinely miraculous. So it's clear that Mister Smith is in contact with something, even if it's not yet clear that that invisible voice really is.

The dichotomy of "Daniel" and Smith's mysterious voice of God is clear: the visible but silent father-figure versus one that's invisible, but whose voice and influence are always heard. The war that arises in the subsequent second-season episodes is in effect the conflict between those two forces.