[This article contains spoilers for the Andor Season 1 Finale]In Andor's season finale, everyone that has been searching the galaxy for Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) descends upon Ferrix in hopes of catching him at his mother's funeral. It's an emotional final act that showcases how much of a tight-knit community Ferrix is and how loved Maarva Andor (Fiona Shaw) was by everyone, including her droid B2EMO (voiced by Dave Chapman). Before the finale premiered, Collider's own Steve Weintraub had the opportunity to chat with Tony Gilroy, the creator of the critically acclaimed series, and naturally, B2EMO's role in the final two episodes came up.
In "Daughters of Ferrix," Maarva's death is told to the audience through B2EMO's obscured ocular lens, and as the distant voices talk about her death and what they'll have to do to prepare for her funeral, B2's distress is palpable. This is a droid who gets stressed out when he's forced to lie, so it's not really a surprise that he can't handle the loss of Maarva, especially after already losing Cassian when he had to flee from the planet. Gilroy shared how they arrived at the decision to tell this part of the story through a droid's viewpoint and how they chose to use him at her funeral, saying:
Well, I had an ace, I had a hole card. I knew I was going to do the hologram. And so, you try to give the audience confidence that you're taking care of them. By that point, the audience probably has confidence that we know we're doing. And then the audience goes, "Well, wait a minute. She just died, and she's off-stage, and you've been so good about all these other things, and really you're going to do that?" And it creates a little bit of tension, too. You didn't see it, but I knew what I had coming.
Droids are an integral part of the Star Wars universe, and regardless of whether someone has watched the films or not, most people can recognize characters like R2-D2 and C-3PO. Depending on their purpose and how they're treated, droids in the world of Star Wars have a wide variety of personalities. You have murderous droids like Chopper in Star Wars: Rebels, eager and friendly droids like BB-8 in the sequel films, and deadpan and snarky droids like K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. B2EMO, true to his name of being too emo, is a very anxious and stressed-out droid throughout his appearances in Andor. Gilroy also shared how they conceptualized B2EMO, saying:
Man, that was just so much fun. Because you're going to do one, right? You're kind of like, "Okay, I'm going to do one and I want to have it be the family dog." And it's an older woman who's alone, and she's got this old dog and the dog just loves her. And what's it like to have an old dog in the house? So, you have that idea, and then I probably wrote up one, two, and three beforehand. We started those conversations when I was over to direct, when I was over pre-COVID, and you start sketching and Luke [Hull] and I are talking about how big it is and how it feels and how it's decayed, and what it does. What it does, also, what's the reality of what a salvage droid does? Why would they have that actual unit and what does it do?
Gilroy went on to reveal the process of transforming B2EMO from a sketched-out piece of concept art into an actual physical prop, saying, "Then it goes up to creatures, and Neil Stevenson, and the concept art goes up there. And there comes a day where you go up there, and they have prototypes, and it's amazing. So, the level of technical expertise and the creativity and the depth of it and the stuff that's even beyond."
What Are They Building for Andor Season 2?
While discussing how B2EMO was created, Gilroy also revealed a few details about a mysterious prop that is being built for Season 2, which seemed to excite him and the rest of the creative team, including director Ariel Kleiman. It's not clear what he's discussing, but with filming beginning earlier this week, it's exciting to get these little details about where they are in the production process. Gilroy explained this mysterious prop by saying:
We're supposed to shoot on Monday, so, on Friday we had a props meeting and I do a lot of stuff remotely, doing props is very difficult to do remotely. You really want to see them. So, we have a big props meeting, and my brother John is there, and he's hearing it now. So, I said, "Man, come up to this thing." Because he loves all this shit, too. So, we went up to the props house on the lot, and they showed us all this stuff. And they finished by showing us this thing that will play a big part, it's a big prop, it will be in Season 2. It has a big utility, and it's really complicated, and this guy had built it. Johnny and I were you just standing there and Ariel Kleiman's standing there, we're standing there watching this guy explain this fricking thing that they built. It's so elaborate and so insane and so beautiful and so far beyond what we thought of. It's amazing.
The entire first season of Andor is streaming now on Disney+. Check out our interview with Diego Luna from before the series premiered below: