Fan community for FX's The Americans

The interviews with cast and creatives continue unabated (all five of the following contain spoilers for season two):

• FX has released an "Inside the Secrets" youtube interview with showrunner Joel Fields (video, 1.5 minutes long), in which he answered fan questions from last year.

• U.S. National Public Radio's show Studio 360 also had an interview with showrunner Joe Weisberg (audio, 12 minutes long).

• Esquire also has an interview with Joe Weisberg about the spy techniques in "Comrades."

• And NPR's Leonard Lopate had a Noah Emmerich interview (audio, 18 minutes long).

• Keri Russell also did an interview (a print one), this time with the Sioux City Journal.

Good news about the ratings for the season two premiere: viewing rose a whopping 81% in the show's key demographic when "time-shifted viewing" was taken into account.

UK's Geektown is suggesting (unconfirmed) that season two will begin in the UK on the 28th of March, based on speculation that season two will run straight through after they finish repeating the season one episodes. The Daily Mirror also suggests that it's likely to return "in the spring". What is confirmed, though, is that it will return, and that it will continue to air on ITV.

Grantland's Hollywood Prospectus podcast with Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald deals with The Americans (starting from 41:36).

FX sponsored a "training day for spies" to promote The Americans and invited journalists on it. Buzzfeed's Alan White reports on the event.

And freelance journalist Jonathan Frochtzwajg has written a piece on medium.com called "Mirror, Mir: Why Cold War Piece The Americans is TV's Most Relevant Spy Show." No spoilers in this, in part because it seems to have been written partway through last year.

Yes, I'm back already with another linkspam! I could maaaaaybe have waited another day, but some of this stuff has been so good, and I feel moved to share.

I'll start with a really very different sort of interview with Joel Fields from spoilertv.com that took questions in advance from the fans and got him to answer them. There are spoilers galore, but I suspect that a couple of people in this community will be very excited to see some of the responses there. :)

And then there's this other interview from tv.com with Joel and Joe Weisberg, which also has some spoilers in it.

And then there's another interview with the two of them from the Huffington Post, which also has some spoilers in it.

And one more from iamrogue.com, also with the two of them and also with some season two spoilers.

There are also four short videos from the Bryant Park interview of two days ago with Joe Weisberg, Joel Fields, and Noah Emmerich: on nuclear launch codes, creating 1980s D.C. in New York City, designing spycraft for The Americans, and on the secret life of Stan (none of which are particularly spoilerrific).

Next, nerd-utopia has got screenshots of the terrific The Americans spread and multi-page article in TV Guide: 1, 2.

And a lovely profile on Holly Taylor (Paige) from Canadian newspaper The Ottawa Citizen.

And The Saratogian has a great review of season two from the screeners.

And speaking of which, guys, I don't know how much you've all been following the early critical response to this show's second season, but it's been so fantastic. Over at the americansfan tumblr, Emma put together a representative compilation of it. And, like, the only negative comments I can find about the show at all (and I've looked!) are from critics like rogerebert.com's Brian Tallerico who wasn't completely on board with season one but still thinks season two is amazing. The critics have always been good to this show, but this is truly unprecedented.

Fast Company has a terrific interview with The Americans' music supervisor PJ Bloom.

The website kerirussellsource.org has a bunch of shots of the filming of the season two finale, which is currently ongoing.

Over at Tumblr, darjeelingandcoke is doing a countdown list of eight reasons to watch The Americans in the last eight days before the season two premiere: here's #8.

And finally, this already got linked separately, but in case there's someone out there who's only got a subscription to certain tags: part one and part two of quantumreality's essay on symmetries in The Americans.

Five days, 10.5 hours to go!

Get ready for a ludicrous number of links this time!

First off, there's a great interview with Keri Russell (Elizabeth) and Matthew Rhys (Philip) in Entertainment Weekly that's sadly behind a paywall, but jenningscomrades posted a series of readable screenshots over at Tumblr.

And speaking of Tumblr, the full set of promotional pictures for season two was posted by theamericanstv there too: 1, 2.

In further interviews, writer/showrunner Joe Weisberg was interviewed at the Writers' Guild of America Awards (the bit with Weisberg starts at 8:05), including at least a couple of things he hasn't already said a thousand times. :)

The show's costume designer Jenny Gering was also interviewed in Elle.

Episode 201 hasn't yet aired, of course, but we now have the plot description for episode 202.

According to writer/showrunner Joel Fields on Twitter, the script for the season two finale was finished this week, and the title for episode ten has been released.

And in the vein of "better late than never," the first season of our favourite show starts airing in Finland today on MTV (there's a trailer at the site and also a wonderful promotional campaign there) and in Germany on ProSieben Maxx (here's a trailer--dubbed, as is par for the course in Germany and a review from the Spiegel for those of you who speak German).

Any of you who are in New York or can get there easily can buy raffle tickets to join cast and crew in style at the season premiere (and get to see the first episode two days early!).

Bad news for anyone who was hoping to see The Americans on Netflix someday: Fox (which owns FX) and Amazon have signed a new distribution agreement granting Amazon Prime's Instant Video subscribers exclusive rights to the show.

There have been a few voices in the media that are hyping the season one DVD/Blu-Ray release in the hope of snagging new viewers before season two: The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Rotten Tomatoes (which chose The Americans as their Weekly Binge show last week).

And last but not least, here's a shot of Matthew Rhys checking out the timeline in the writers' room. (16 days!)

First up: there are two new promos! Only one of them has been posted yet, the teaser "Bed", but sistermagpie has confirmed that there is also an actual trailer with new footage, and I'd imagine that it will be up at the official FX youtube playlist soon (probably immediately now that I've posted this linkspam *g*).

Two new pieces that seem to be left over from the Television Association Critics Press Tour: from ign.com and from Bustle. (Minor spoilers ahoy, as with the previous pieces from the tour.)

Vanity Fair has a piece on Keri Russell that's only partly about the show, but there's some stuff there I hadn't known, so.

And finally, the title of season two, episode eight has been released.

FX presented their upcoming programming to the Television Critics' Association today. The "Americansfan" tumblr blog has some photos and some very mild spoilers, and TVline and USA Today hash through some of the information they're letting out about season two as well.

Two of the critics who most strongly championed the show in its first season, Matt Zoller Seitz of Vulture and Alyssa Rosenberg of Think Progress, have reviewed screeners for the first two episodes and pronounced them good. Seitz says: crisp, densely packed storytelling; double lives abound, more family emphasis, and Rosenberg says: watching the new season and getting enraged over the lack of awards attention it got all over again and also, the new season is great.

Apparently paparazzi can be good for something: one of them took a bunch of photos of Keri Russell while she was filming a fight scene for season two. And one of Matthew Rhys' makeup artists has a photo of him from filming as well.

And last but not least, it seems that if you were a New York-based actor, you could get your headshots taken by the one and only Arkady Ivanovich.

Coming Soon is announcing that the premiere of season two will be on February 26th (so if you guessed that in our poll, pat yourself on the back)

Some new season two spoilers about the content of the premiere episode (if you're supremely spoiler-averse, don't hover on the link)

and one last best-of-2013 list, this time from Las Vegas Weekly.

A tiny (and non-spoilery, as far as I can tell) teaser trailer has been released for season two! They've given it a name ("Hidden") and there are hints that there will be others. [Edited to add: Another one, "Dinner Table," has also been released now.]

Guys, guys, our show is cleaning up in the Top Ten lists this year. Here are several more: the Washington Post, Vulture (and here's what it looks like in the actual magazine), and the American Film Institute list.

Antennafree TV features The Americans as one of the thirteen new TV shows you should binge-watch over the holidays.

On the spoiler front, ScreenCrush talks about the teaser and the other known spoilers that have been released so far (but also mentions one I hadn't seen before), the title has been revealed for season two, episode six, Joel Fields tweeted a photo of an editor working with the opening shot for season two, and there are now several shots of the "80s wall" in the The Americans writers' room: one of Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg standing in front of it early in the season, a closeup revealing potential spoilery things, and another closeup revealing potential spoilery things.

I'll start with two recent pieces that really get into some detail about the show and the making of it: a great interview with the The Americans editors from Editors Guild Magazine, and a piece with a focus on Keri Russell from Capitol File Magazine. Both have very (very very!) minor spoilers for storylines in season two.

Next, a satisfying "guide to the TV galaxy" from the Weekly Wonk (a U.S.-based political magazine) that focuses primarily on awesome non-U.S. shows, but pays tribute to our show as well. :)

And finally, some tiny tidbits from Twitter:

Non-spoileriffic: a cute photo of a cat on Matthew Rhys' chair, a shot of the actors who play Martha, Nina, and Sandra together at a recent fundraiser, and a picture of showrunners Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg together on set while filming.

Mildly spoileriffic: a shot of a prop from a corner of a set, a shot of the filming of an outdoor scene, a shot of Keri Russell in disguise, two tweets from writer Angelina Burnett about the shooting of an episode that she wrote (including one very intriguing spoiler!), and a photo of a script that reveals the title for season two, episode four.

(Heads-up to the spoilerphobes: there may be discussion of the spoilers linked to above in the comments.)

Treon noticed that thetvdb is now listing the U.S./Canada debut airdate for season two, episode one as February 5th, 2014. This is unconfirmed, but it's the first mention either of us has noticed of a specific date, so we figured it was worth mentioning. They have now removed this listing.

This little tidbit from Variety includes a short interview with Annet Mahendru (Nina).

Another fan in the New York area took some pictures of a day's shooting and posted them to instagram (only very minor spoilers included in the pictures).

( season two casting spoiler under the cut )