Oh, Kino. Oh, Andy Serkis. Oh, my bruised and battered heart. Andor Episode 10, “One Way Out,” is a gut punch that leaves fan favorite Kino Loy’s fate uncertain. What happens to Kino at the end of the episode? Is he alive? Is he dead!? After months of grieving Andy Serkis’s unforgettable character, we’ve gotten a ray of hope from Serkis himself.
A quick recap: at the end of the episode, Cassian (Diego Luna) and the other inmates make it to the prison’s only exit … to find that there’s nothing but a hundred foot drop into the ocean in front of them. As inmates start to fall or jump into the water, Kino delivers a devastating line: “I can’t swim.”
Cassian tries to stay and help him, but Kino seems resigned to his fate, even laughing a little as he contemplates the drop in front of him. “Can’t swim,” he repeats, and before Cassian can figure out what to do, he himself is pushed into the water by the crowd. Kino is left on the ledge, at a loss. We don’t find out what happens to him.
Obviously, there are two possibilities here: either Kino lives, or he dies. Back in November, when the episode aired, we broke down the evidence for each one. Here are the theories we came up with:
Possibility #1: Kino dies
Given the crush at the ledge, and Kino’s determination to escape no matter what, there seems to be no chance that he just hangs around in the prison and lets himself be re-incarcerated. Yes, we see him standing there while everyone around him jumps, but he knows that there’s only one way out—after all, he’s been chanting it during the whole escape.
That means that Kino either takes his chances in the water and drowns, or finds his ultimate escape some other way. I refuse to believe that Kino would just let the Empire recapture him and put him back to work. After that devastating realization at the end of Episode 9? After that rousing speech at the microphone? No way. If Kino dies, he dies fighting, not as an inmate.
Possibility #2: Kino escapes
There’s a chance that Kino eventually jumps into the water, and manages to swim to shore with the other prisoners. It’s a slim chance—notice that out of the hundreds of men in the water, only Cassian and Melshi seem to make it to shore—but it’s not impossible.
Another possibility is that Kino finds another way to get to safety. A stolen shuttle? A secret passage? Who knows? That’s even more of a long shot, since we don’t see any other way of getting off the prison, but again, it’s not impossible.
When the episode aired, the main evidence that Kino survived was the simple fact that we don’t see him die onscreen. First rule of science fiction, everyone: don’t count a character out until you see the body.
Andy Serkis confirms that Kino is alive
In a recent interview with ET about Andor season 2, series creator Tony Gilroy was blunt: “Well, he didn’t die. I don’t know what happened, but he didn’t die. We never see him die.”
Andy Serkis confirmed that Kino is still alive. “If he jumped, that would be the end of him and he would be out of the picture,” Serkis explained. “But no, he’s alive and working out his next move.”
So where is Kino? What’s he up to? Will he return in season 2? We may have to wait until the season’s release in 2024 to find out.
Until then, though, why not sit back and appreciate the beauty and tragedy of “One Way Out”? For Kino to come so close to escape, only to be held back by a problem so absurd and unfair that he has to laugh about it, is a brutal reminder of what’s at stake for the prisoners. Kino knew from the start that he might not survive the escape attempt, but that it was worth it to try anyway. Perhaps, as he’s contemplating the drop in front of him, he knows that at least he helped the other prisoners get away. Giving one’s life for the cause is a well-worn theme in Star Wars, but Kino’s (possible) death shows us that it never gets any easier.
(featured image: Disney+)
