FX renews 'The Americans' for second season

FX's 1980s-set espionage thriller The Americans has been renewed for a second season by the network, it's been reported. The series, which stars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as two KGB agents posing as a married, suburban American couple, premiered at the end of January and has marked relatively stable ratings since. 

The fourth episode, Wednesday night's "In Control," logged around 2 million viewers, a figure that's quickly providing to be around average for the show's first season. The figures are slightly lower than FX' dramas Justified and American Horror Story, and a damn sight lower than the network's tentpole, Sons of Anarchy. Still, FX seems to believe that The Americans' audience can grow, and if the quality of the show is any indicator, it certainly will. 

The Americans season 2 will, like season 1, consist of thirteen episodes. 

FX's other new original series of 2013, the sitcom Legit, has not yet been picked up for a second season. 

If you're wanting to catch up on The Americans, FX will be airing a marathon of the five episodes that have aired so far on Friday, March 1.

The next episode of The Americans, "Comint" -- in which "a crucial agent crumbles under emotional distress and threatens to topple a valuable network of KGB informants," while "professionally, Philip and Elizabeth are tasked with infiltrating the FBI’s new communications encryption system while personally they are forced to grapple with one of the darker aspects of life as a spy" -- will air next Wednesday, February 27, on FX.