But the thing about the picture . . . I have problems with this as a storytelling choice.

Yeah, I had the same issues as you. Though Alex sort of tries to walk back/undermine the potential Unfortunate Implications in a later ep, which I suspect means he realized the same thing or had it pointed out to him.

I mean, it's credible that this is something Bertie would feel embarrassed by, but the framing runs the risk of setting it up as "this is something objectively embarrassing, haha." Which is not the intent, I think, but -- Unfortunate Implications, as I said.