Why Andor Season 2 Didn't Feature Andy Serkis As Kino Loy

This post contains spoilers for "Andor" season 2.

"Andor" season 2 is in the rearview mirror, with one of the most acclaimed "Star Wars" things ever concluding its run. The series finale, "Jedha, Kyber Erso," provided the show with a complicated ending, leading us right up to the events of "Rogue One." What the finale did not do was insert a bunch of cameos or bring back a bunch of characters, which might have been the vibe in the series finales for other shows. One character who sat on the sidelines for the entirety of season 2 was Kino Loy.

Played by Andy Serkis, Kino Loy was a key part of the prison arc from "Andor" season 1, culminating in the episode "One Way Out," which saw Cassian and the other prisoners overthrowing the Imperials in a harrowing escape. It all concluded with the captives jumping into the water to safety, with Kino's last words memorably being, "I can't swim." It was a gut punch, but his fate was left somewhat uncertain.

In a post-finale interview with The Hollywood Reporter, series creator/showrunner Tony Gilroy addressed the decision not to bring Serkis back as Kino in season 2. For Gilroy, it was all about not minimizing the impact of Kino's final on-screen moments in one of the best episodes of "Star Wars" television ever produced. Here's what he had to say about it:

"Andy dropped the mic, man. What am I going to do that's going to be better than what we did? All it does is minimize that moment. I knew a lot of people were talking about whether we had a way of [bringing him back]. But I didn't want to have that sort of coincidental environment."

There always seemed like a chance that Kino could reappear in "Andor," perhaps as a member of the ever-growing Rebellion on Yavin. Tony Gilroy even said, "We didn't see him die" in an interview with /Film in 2022 regarding Kino's fate, which seemed to leave things open-ended. For what it's worth, he still could be alive, we just didn't see him again in the show. It's a big galaxy, after all.

In many ways, it's fitting that Kino didn't come back. "Andor" isn't the kind of "Star Wars" project that was made with a lot of fan service. That's probably why a young Leia didn't show up in the show, even though it was discussed early on. This show was always in service of the characters, right up to the end. Gilroy, speaking further, also explained that's why we didn't ever see Cassian's sister again, who was the driving force for him in the show's very first episode. He explained:

"[Kino Loy] is like [Cassian's] sister [who he was trying to find in the series premiere]. People wanted to know if we're going to resolve the sister. And the sister, in the beginning, is so much more interesting to me as a deficit. She's much more valuable to me for Cassian as an absence. As he says in the end, 'Maybe I should stop saving people.' His need to return and save people and to be a savior and the compulsion to do that comes from this hole in his life, and I didn't really didn't want to fill that in."

Who knows? Maybe if the original five-season plan for "Andor" had gone forward, things would have been different. As it exists, Gilroy and the creative team made decisions about who to bring back and who not to bring back based purely on what would serve the story at hand. Unfortunately, Kino Loy just didn't fit the bill.

"Andor" is streaming now on Disney+.