Star Trek: Picard Still Needs To Explain The Death Of Q
John de Lancie's Q was killed off in Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard, his death was never truly explained, and that needs to be fixed.
Star Trek: Picard‘s second season ends with the death of John de Lancie’s Q — the very first antagonist of Star Trek: The Next Generation — and yet his demise has never been explained. In spite of the godlike Q appearing all across the mythos –in four different series so far — we never even see him die. His death was so poorly handled, I assumed Season 3 had a surprise return waiting, and yet here we are with only two episodes of Star Trek: Picard left, and Q remains a no-show.
In the past, Q was established as harboring such staggering power that in the Season 2 Star Trek: Voyager episode “Death Wish,” he is literally able to turn the titular vessel into an ornament hanging from a Christmas tree. Yet Star Trek: Picard never offers anything even close to an explanation for the death of Q. The best we get is the entity’s musings on his demise in Picard Season 2’s “Mercy”:
“You think I’m dying. I prefer to believe that I am on the threshold of the unknowable… And so I prepared myself to be enveloped in the warm glow of meaning. Well, that moment has yet to come. Not even a glimmer. Dying stars burn brighter as they spin toward extinction. I, on the other hand, seem to be simply disappearing… into nothing.”
Q in “Mercy” – Star Trek: Picard S2 E8
It’s a beautifully written moment of Star Trek: Picard, it’s expertly delivered by John de Lancie, and it survives as perhaps Q’s most shockingly powerful moment ever. But it explains absolutely nothing. It doesn’t even give us a hint.
We don’t even get to witness Q’s death. His final scenes include some touching moments with Picard, but once he snaps his fingers and sends the heroes back to the 25th century — along with resurrecting Elnor (Evan Evagora) — that’s it. We never see him die.
Star Trek has a long — and arguably far too overcrowded — a history of seemingly all-powerful characters that Patrick Stewart‘s Picard and others have encountered, and if Q were one of those other entities, his inexplicable death might be more forgivable. If he were someone like Voyager‘s Caretaker (Basil Langton), for instance, it might be more excusable since we only ever meet the Caretaker and one other member of his species. But Trek is absolutely popping with different members of the Q Continuum.
Corbin Bernsen (Major League) made a cameo as a Q in the Season 3 TNG episode “Deja Q,” Gerrit Graham (Child’s Play 2) played a suicidal Q in Voyager‘s “Death Wish,” Suzie Plakson (Disclosure) is a Female Q that De Lancie’s character mates with in “The Q and the Grey,” and De Lancie’s own son Keegan played his offspring in Voyager‘s “Q2.” Not to mention the aforementioned “The Q and the Grey” shows us plenty of Q in American Civil War combat gear.
In other words, when Star Trek: Picard kills Q, they don’t just kill a seemingly immortal character without explanation, they kill a member of a seemingly immortal species without explanation. Why did Jonathan de Lancie’s Q die when no other member of the Continuum has ever died (except those who were killed by other Q)?
Star Trek: Picard has no shortage of potential answers to the death of Q. For example, the show could’ve revealed it had something to do with his constant pestering of mortals, i.e., their mortality somehow “rubbed off” on him. The story could’ve revealed it was somehow Q’s own unconscious doing that he wished for death — to know the “unknowable” — and so subconsciously used his limitless powers to effect his own slow demise.
But Star Trek: Picard fails to make explaining the death of Q a priority; even in the narrative, no one seems to care that much — including Q himself — how this could happen. It does a deep disservice to one of the most important characters in the Trek mythos, because it turns his death into nothing more than a necessary plot device — something the Picard writers needed to make the larger story of Season 2 possible.
With only two episodes left of Star Trek: Picard, and with Q not even being mentioned in this final season, it seems clear the series intends to shutter without giving De Lancie’s character justice. But we’ll be making sure to watch this Thursday and next on Paramount+ just in case.
