Andor Fans Are Convinced Andy Serkis' Kino Is Still Alive Somewhere
"Andor" viewers were introduced to Andy Serkis' prison floor boss Kino Loy in Episode 8, shortly after Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) is sentenced to join the other inmates working their lives away in the high-tech Imperial lock-up on Narkina 5. As a sort of manager at the facility, Kino is the prisoner in charge of keeping his fellow detainees on-task at their assembly tables on the cell block floor. A dour, no-nonsense guy, Kino quickly makes it clear to Cassian that he just wants to maintain his group's relentless work output, finish his sentence, and walk out of the place a free man.
For Cassian's part, he realizes that Kino is the one man he must bring to his side if he's to convince the rest of the inmates to attempt a mass escape from the prison. Kino is reluctant to help, telling Cassian he doesn't have that much longer to serve. But then it's revealed that instead of being granted their promised release once they've served their time, Narkina 5's inmates are simply being recycled into other prisons. Realizing he's going to die there anyway, Kino commits to Cassian's desperate, long-shot scheme to break out. In "Andor" Episode 10, "One Way Out," Cassian and almost all of the prisoners do manage to escape. And while Kino doesn't make it out, some "Andor" viewers refuse to believe it's all over for this fan-favorite character.
Andor fans are in denial about Kino's post-escape fate
As the "One Way Out" episode of "Andor" concludes, the escaping inmates are massed on a platform above the vast lake surrounding the prison. Cassian shouts that they've made it; they can jump into the water and get away. But just as Kino shouts to him, "I can't swim," Cassian is knocked off the platform into the lake. The last we see of Kino he's looking grimly resigned to dying at the prison as the others all swim to freedom.
Posting about Kino's fate on the series' subreddit discussion of the subsequent Episode 11, "Andor" fan u/Just another oddball declared, "I choose to believe that Kino somehow made it last episode." Redditor u/Rougey wants to believe the character survived too, even suggesting a comfy future hobby for Kino and hoping "That he makes it offworld to a nice, quiet place to live out the rest of his life and collect stamps. He looks like a stamp collector." U/Lambinater helpfully explains that Kino's situation is simply: "TV show logic. You didn't [see] him die? Definitely not dead." This, however, prompts u/GirthyGirthBoy to take the opposite view, writing, "He died. They not showing him die is just artistic freedom. Not everything has to be shown. It's more powerful that way to leave it to the imagination of how he died." But this just spurs u/WorldsHero99 to respond with the optimistic, all-caps, kind-of-hard-to-argue-with assertion that: "NO BODY, NO DEATH."