ANDOR's Scrapped K-2SO Story Was Straight-Up Sci-Fi Horror and It Would've Been Awesome

We all knew that Andor was going to bring back the fan-favorite droid character K-2SO, and it finally happened in the recently released wave of episodes. But his original reintroduction was way darker than what ended up on screen. In fact, it was almost full-on horror.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Andor creator Tony Gilroy opened up about a scrapped concept that would have brought K-2 back into Cassian’s orbit in a much more terrifying fashion.

Written by Tony’s brother Dan Gilroy, the episode was meant to be a standalone thriller that sounded like it came straight out of a Star Wars-flavored haunted house.

“Dan Gilroy wrote an amazing, entirely self-contained episode that was episode 209. It was an amazing episode that was like a horror movie.

“It was the K2 story. 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. We could not afford to do it. It was made clear that it was out of the range, so we had to abandon that and consolidate things.”

That sounds like it would’ve been awesome! The concept would’ve had Rebel forces transporting a massive tanker ship to Yavin only to discover there’s a rogue KX-series security droid (like K-2SO) onboard.

Think Alien, but swap the Xenomorph out for an emotionless Imperial murder-bot. It's a great pitch, but the cost of bringing it to life meant the episode had to be reworked.

Instead, Andor Season 2 takes a more restrained approach, though the horror fingerprints are still there. K-2SO makes his first appearance in Episode 8, “Who Are You?” not as a friend but as a cold enforcer during the Ghorman massacre.

A group of KX droids terrorizes peaceful protestors, brutally gunning them down in one of the darkest moments the franchise has ever shown. As K-2 closes in on Cassian and Wilmon, another protestor named Samm slams into the droid with a transport, killing it.

Cassian recovers the damaged droid and brings it back to Yavin, where it will eventually become the sarcastic, loyal companion we know from Rogue One.

K-2SO is fully brought back online at the end of Episode 9, ”Welcome to the Rebellion.” The final three episodes drop May 13, and fans are eager to see how the droid’s story continues to play out.

While Lucasfilm gave the Gilroys a wide creative lane, budget constraints still held him back, which is a shame. But Gilroy and his team clearly pivoted on a smaller in scale, and it worked. It just wasn’t as cool at the original pitch.

Do you wish we would’ve gotten the horror version of K-2’s return?