Andor’s Tony Gilroy on Bix Caleen’s Deleted Season Two Mission

I loved hearing that you were outvoted about Bix eating Gorst’s cupcake because I wanted that to happen. I thought that was getting ready to happen!

GILROY: Man, that’s a deep dive. [Laughs] That’s a very deep dive. That’s one interview. No, I was like, “Wow,” but nobody else wanted to do it.

It was the perfect revenge.

GILROY: There are some times where I will go against the groupthink, but you’ve got to pick that battle a lot. There was a chorus of people who thought that was a bad idea.

Well, I think they’re wrong.

GILROY: I’m not sure if we even shot it. Did they try it? I’m not sure. But everyone felt it took the gravitas out of it.

I felt like it was getting ready to happen. I did love that humanity, almost, of Gorst. He’s off on his lunch break, grabbing himself a little sweet treat.

GILROY: They let me have the cupcake. The cupcake made it to the scene.

It worked well for that scene. I’m curious, this is another one of the elements in between the arcs. After that moment of getting to have her revenge in killing Gorst, did Bix continue doing more missions with Cassian, or once they got to Yavin, did she start helping more so with building up the base and building up those components of the Alliance?

GILROY: What I’m suggesting is that Luthen has laid the tracks. Well, he’s shut the door. I don’t think Vel wants to have anything else to do with him after the Aldhani operation. I think she’s had her fill after she finds out that he’s been keeping her and Cinta apart very aggressively. I think Cassian has had his own Oedipal crisis with Luthen about his meddling in their personal relationship, with his relationship with Bix.

Once that’s done, I would imagine there was a period of time, a transition, where Yavin began to look more attractive, and Luthen began to look more disturbing. Bix is healthier and deciding what she wants to do, and I think that she’s probably lost faith in Luthen, as well. The gravitational pull of Yavin and the organized Rebellion is overwhelming. It’s a place for them to live, also. It’s a place for them to have home while they do the revolution.

One of the things that we talked about with Luke [Hull] was to make sure that the place that they had, because they get to pick out primo real estate if you’re there early, is that they have a really nice place there, and that there’s room to spread out, and that there is a home. So, I don’t think she’s given up. I could invent a whole bunch of different things that she was doing in the interim for the Rebellion, but primarily, I think that the split from Luthen probably happens a month or two later after this.

Did you have outlines for those in-between times?

GILROY: No. I clearly go back to the earlier jump. The jump that takes them between block one and block two when they end up in the safehouse in Coruscant, I think they’ve been on a lot of missions for Luthen. There was even a mission that he was going to suggest for her when he wanted her to go out without Cassian. So, what’s her value? Her value is, she’s an engineer. She’s super tech, so she’s really good at analyzing weapon systems. There was actually a scene that we wrote at one point where she’s on a mission on her own, and it’s verifying the legitimacy and reliability of an Imperial weapon that’s being traded to someone else. It’s like a drug deal, really, and she got caught. So, Luthen can use her for.

She does have value. Ferrix is a really good background education for weaponry and mechanics. I mean, look at Wilmon. They’re all very, very handy coming off of Ferrix. So, I think those backstories and the killing of the soldier and the whole thing that happens offstage, that I understand. I mean, not to the point of writing the scene, but to the point of explaining it to Diego [Luna] and Adria [Arjona]. But not always.

It’s give and take.

GILROY: Yeah. It’s when it’s really needed. It’s when it’s needed.

Read the interview in full here, and stream Andor on Disney+ now.