I'm too tired to work, who wants to hear my thoughts about how Q and the Grey should have been a Picard episode?

I'm just kidding... You don't have a choice in the matter.

I also want to get started real quick and say: This isn't a dig on Janeway. Love Janeway. She should still be in the episode too... but if we're talking about Q's love affair with humanity, well...

Let's break down the things wrong with Q and the Grey, and we'll build back up from there.

The main problem is heteronormativity and how an omniscient being that can change his form at will should not give a shit about it. What's gender to a Q? It's set dressing.

Let's be real here: Janeway had Q dead to rights; he had a plan, but didn't want to do the hard work for it. He wanted to incorporate human values in the Q continuum, and his first thought was to make a Q-human hybrid. And the reason he makes a show about having to find a female?

That has nothing to do with the fact that he presents male, and everything to do with the fact that he's avoiding the hard work. It has nothing to do with heterosexuality. He saw the traditional family model and said "Yeah, let me find someone else to do all that for me."

Okay, now let's address Lady Q... Imo it's a case of "love the character, hate the way she was written."
Q doesn't need a jealous ex-lover to come hurl misogynistic insults around to drive the plot forward. I mean, maybe that's the only thing the writers could conceive of, but

My take is: keep Lady Q in the eP, but change her role.
She shouldn't be there as the heterosexual "obvious choice" for Q's misplaced affections. She should be there for the simple reason that HE'S THE LEADER OF A CIVIL WAR FACTION AND DECIDED TO LEAVE TO FUCK MORTALS

HE STARTED A GODDAMN CIVIL WAR, AND THEN THE FIRST HAREBRAINED SCHEME HE COMES UP WITH HE'S LIKE "BRB, GOTTA GO REPRODUCE WITH A FLESHLING TO MAKE A MESSIAH TO END THE WAR"
Obviously anyone as competent as Lady Q (and she is) would want to come punch him in the face.

Which is where we come to my first edit: Instead of poofing in and backhandedly calling Janeway a bitch, she should have just decked Q.
Why does she have to fight over Q? Who /wants/ Q? (We'll get there.) By Lady Q's own admission, it's certainly not her.

She should want him back in the Continuum only insofar as she's one of the people that rallied behind him when he started this mess, and now as far as anyone can tell, he's basically abandoning the cause.
Just. Fuckin' punch him.

It's such a small edit, but the ripple effect it has... If we remove her as his obvious choice for the zany "let's make a baby" scheme, then we open up the possibility of "Have you really thought about what that really solves?? Q???"

Janeway says it herself: The essence of humanity isn't a genetic thing. The same traits he wants to pass on can be accomplished through nurture instead.
The ending of the episode (spoilers?) supposes that Q himself is enough to pass those traits on.
Which like...

So let's back up and talk about WHY Q wants to infuse human values into the continuum.
How does Q go from seeing humanity as an undeveloped "child" race, to one that has values and drives that can save the continuum itself?

All credit to Janeway where it's due, but... it's not Janeway. Q hangs out around her because she (and her situation) are interesting. Q craves watching humans solving puzzles... but someone else set the groundwork to make Q see humanity as something worth aspiring to.

You know where I'm going with this... it's Vash!!
Okay, I'm kinda kidding, but not really. Vash opened his eyes to the wonder of humanity. A shade of it that he really identified with, and presented a flip side to his original model...

There's definitely an off-screen scene in Q and the Grey where Q pops in to Vash with the same proposition he gave to Janeway, and she just straight up stabs him. You can't convince me otherwise.

But anyway... it all goes back to Picard. The human that challenged him... probably the first thing that challenged him in a long time. The person that really tested him, and made him see how the Continuum was lacking in things he previously scoffed at.

When Janeway, while poking at Q's bullet wound under the guise of helping, takes him to task about trying to take the easy way out, about trying to make a human clean up his mess, about how he needs to build something based on love instead of necessity...

That's when this should have become about Picard... not about /Picard/ coming in and fixing his mess, but about Q finally admitting the worst thing he can imagine: He needs to ask Picard for his help.

We know that's not a first for Q, BUT... he's come to Picard when he was at his lowest... now he has to come to Picard, with all of his supposedly omnipotent powers fully intact... and admit that Picard still has something that Q doesn't, and he needs his help.

This doesn't have to end with the weird baby Q messiah thing... I don't mind Q Jr. as a character, but honestly, he was set up for failure... Can you imagine the pressure of being told you were created to change the mindset of your entire species? Of course he became a delinquent

And I'm not saying this should end with Picard becoming a Q either... that would change his essence, his certain je ne sais quoi, that Q wanted to work in to begin with.
Think of it as a sabbatical. An exchange program. Q needs Picard to come guest lecture the Continuum.