K-2SO’s Andor Origin Story Was Almost a Standalone Horror Episode

The end of this week’s episode arc on Andor finally welcomed K-2SO into the fold. In an enemies to besties moment on the streets of Palmo, Cassian (Diego Luna) is saved from the KX droid when it gets run over and he takes the pieces back to Yavin with him.

After finding out Bix is nowhere to be found, he and Draven gather to witness the re-programming of the KX droid on a metal bed that gives Frankenstein vibes. K-2SO awakens and asks why a gun is pointed at him in actor Alan Tudyk’s recognizable character voice.

Originally, however, his introduction was a lot more unsettling. “Dan Gilroy wrote an amazing, entirely self-contained episode that was episode 209,” Tony Gilroy told Entertainment Weekly, “It was an amazing episode that was like a horror movie.”

“They had to bring this huge ugly tanker ship to Yavin, and there was a KX unit that was trapped inside there hunting. It was sort of like a monster movie with K2 on it. It was really cool.”

But ultimately it wasn’t meant to be. “We could not afford to do it,” he said.

It was great that there were still some strokes of horror in the episode as he’s jolted back to life in a mad-scientist, old-school spooky way, but it also would have been interesting to see the extended version. However, “it was made clear that it was out of the range, so we had to abandon that and consolidate things,” Gilroy said.

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