In the eighth episode of Andor season 2, "Who Are You?", Cassian Andor finally met K-2SO. The KX-series security droid's role was relatively small, but he was shown making short work of the innocent people living on Ghorman.
K-2SO is moments away from killing the Rebel, and later taken back to Yavin, where he's rebooted and given a new, far less sinister personality. However, the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story character's introduction came later than expected and wasn't quite as big a moment as some fans hoped.
Talking to Entertainment Weekly (via SFFGazette.com), Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy said there were originally plans for an whole episode revolving around K-2SO.
"Dan Gilroy wrote an amazing, entirely self-contained episode that was episode 209," Tony revealed. "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."
Unfortunately, Gilroy had to scrap these plans when it became clear "we could not afford to do it." He added, "It was made clear that it was out of the range, so we had to abandon that and consolidate things."
"The whole dynamic and the economics of everything changed between season 1 and season 2. Season 1 was, 'Oh my God, Pearl Harbor was just bombed! Build aircraft carriers as fast as possible! We don't care! Size, scale, build it, go Game of Thrones! Money is no object. Make it!'.
"By the time we got to season 2, and Bob [Iger] came back, everything had changed and everybody was belt-tightening. It's hard to ask for more money when they're laying people off at Disney, and we were like, 'Wow, man. Well, we built half an aircraft carrier. We'd like to finish it.'"
"We made as many concessions as we could, but it was still a huge gamble on their part to keep going and still a huge ask. So thank you, Disney, and thank you Lucasfilm. It was lot of tough conversations and a lot of anxiety, but really, in the end, they really backed our play."
It's always a shame to hear that finances negatively impacted creative plans. Bear in mind that Andor reportedly cost around $645 million to produce across two seasons. That's not a great investment on Disney's part, particularly as the series, while critically acclaimed, isn't a massive draw for subscribers.
Back to K-2SO, and Gilroy confirmed that Alan Tudyk was "disappointed" to learn of his limited role in the Star Wars series, but came around to the idea when the showrunner explained that it would be worth the wait.
We'll find out if that's the case when the three-episode Andor finale arrives on Disney+ next Tuesday.