Andor “Missed A Big Chunk” Of Its Best Relationship, Alan Tudyk Reveals
There was precious little K2 in Season 2.
Back when Lucasfilm announced Andor, most Rogue One fans assumed the show would be a two-hander between its anti-hero, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), and his trusty droid companion, K-2SO (Alan Tudyk). Their odd-couple pairing was a highlight of the 2016 film, even if it was brief, and thanks to a 2017 spin-off comic, we knew that Cassian and K-2 had spent years together before their fateful Rogue One mission. The idea that Andor would fill in the gaps of their relationship felt like a given.
As cut-and-dry as that premise seemed, however, Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy wiped the slate clean and rewrote Cassian and K-2’s relationship. While promoting the show’s second and final season, he revealed that he couldn’t find anything of use in the comic book. In fact, he was “annoyed” that another writer had given K-2 a backstory at all.
“Canon, I usually try to deal with it, and I’m really sympathetic and into it,” Gilroy said on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast. “[But] it’s like, ‘No, I’m not paying attention to that. We’re not doing that.’”
K-2’s role in Andor Season 2 proved to be slightly underwhelming.
Per Gilroy, K-2 was also a bit too distracting for a series about clandestine missions. Though he had a bombastic, “horror movie” inspired introduction in mind, Gilroy had to scrap that for budget reasons, and the showrunner ultimately shortened the time Cassian spent with K-2 to just one year. Cassian meets the droid during an insurrection on the planet Ghorman, decommissions him, and takes him back to the Rebel base on Yavin IV for reprogramming.
Andor then jumps forward in time, skipping over what presumably would have been crucial relationship-building for the duo. It’s a frustrating creative choice, given the anticipation for K-2 that Andor Season 1 left fans. Season 2 doesn’t add much, if anything, to their bond, which left Tudyk to study the space between episodes for his performance.
“You missed a big chunk of us getting to know each other,” Tudyk said during a recent appearance at FanExpo Denver. “A lot of the things I had in my mind about Cassian and K-2 are in that blank space that we don’t get to see, and that’s how they get to care about one another.”
Though Andor Season 2 “missed a big chunk” of Cassian’s bond with K-2, Tudyk tried to fill the vacuum.
Tudyk and Luna drew on that blank space — and, more likely, their 10 years of friendship — to inspire their Season 2 performance. The brief moments we do get between Cassian and K-2 feel natural, and even if the actors didn’t get to literally explore their adventures, there’s clearly history between the pair. Tudyk, especially, did a lot with a little — though his K-2 is only truly around in four episodes, he steals the show at every turn. It’s a fitting reminder of some of the best moments in Rogue One; it’s just a shame that Andor didn’t have the time to use the character more.
