‘Andor’ Creator Explains Why There Isn’t More K-2SO in Season 2

K-2SO is coming, really.

Alan Tudyk’s beloved slouching quippy reprogrammed Imperial murder-bot has an important role to play in Andor season two … just not quite yet (and when he does come into the story, K-2SO is great and gives you what you’ve been waiting for, promise).

It’s understandable that some fans have been a bit impatient for this. When Andor was first announced as a prequel series to 2016’s Rogue One, the first thing that likely popped into your mind is Cassian Andor and his eight-foot-tall metal buddy roaming the galaxy, going on Rebel Alliance missions and having all sorts of adventures — a bit like The Mandalorian, but with a sarcastic killer droid in the cockpit instead of an adorable Baby Yoda.

And while Andor the show has been very different — and arguably far better — than anybody expected, the lack of K-2SO in the first season and across the first half of season two has been admittedly bittersweet.

Obviously, the character is an expensive effect. K-2SO is performed by Tudyk via motion capture and the result is incredibly realistic. When K-2SO is copiloting Cassian’s ship later in the season, like in the above photo, his face and body are indistinguishable from real life.

But according to creator Tony Gilroy, the biggest reason we haven’t seen K-2SO is story-based. In addition to Gilroy having other ideas for Cassian’s journey, having your hero tag along with a rather conspicuous repurposed Imperial robot limits what he can do — especially when your hero is often in dangerous territory and trying not to attract any attention.

“[Limiting K-2SO] K-2SO came from the experience of making Rogue, to be honest with you,” Gilroy says. “From the very beginning, that was one of the most difficult parts of the original conversation — how long I was going to have to delay [K-2SO]? Because what can you do with him? I don’t want people to go back and diagram Rogue, but just within that movie, there are two or three or four places where we are hiding him — where he has to stay on the ship or can’t go somewhere. He’s a really, really difficult piece of equipment to carry through a story. The limitations on him are huge. He’s a very visible, troublesome piece of story gear. So I knew intuitively how long I would have to wait to do it.”

That said, Gilroy added, “[K-2SO] is fantastic and he’s funny. Tudyk is hysterical and it’s really great. We were like, ‘Okay, we’re going to [have him in the show] and let’s make it spectacular and let’s really make a thing out of it. And that’s what we’ve tried to do.”