"It was crazy!" declares Eden Riegel of the grueling shooting day. "It was insane, in fact. Alexa and I were on the set from 9 a.m. to like 7:30 at night, just the two of us." Alexa Havins agrees, "It was so intense to tape. It was a long, long day, a 12-hour tape day." Both actresses were warned by AMC execs that the episode would be especially demanding. "They made a big deal of it," Riegel recalls. "I don't think they've ever handed that much material to just two actresses before, so they wanted us to be prepared." Havins adds, "It was the most dialogue I've ever had in my entire life. To the point where several weeks before they gave me the script, our producer, Julie [Hanan Carruthers] sat us down and said to us, 'This is just so important.' And she turned to me and said, 'We're almost nervous because it's so much material. If it's too much, let us know.' It was that dialogue-heavy." "Unfortunately, we only got the script like three days ahead of time!" chuckles Riegel. "But hey! We're old pros."

Were the actresses at all intimidated by this monumental challenge? "Actually, I wasn't scared at all," Riegel shrugs. "It was a good challenge. It was one of those things where it's like, 'This is what I do. This is what I love.' To have all that material and to be there in the moment ... I didn't want to be in any other place. It was really exciting. We've been waiting for this for a long time. It was a big pay-off for both of us. But I was a little nervous because this was definitely a very, very special episode. That was the biggest challenge to me; I was going in there knowing, 'This is the moment.' I kept having to make myself laugh and leave set and play with my friends in the hair and makeup room and just sort of try to view the day as though it was just an average taping day because the last thing those scenes needed from my character's perspective was that sense of gravity, that feeling of, 'This is so important.' Because it was not a big deal for my character — she had no idea what was coming."

Havins agrees with her co-star that the challenge was an exciting one. "I'm always up for a challenge and I work best under pressure," she notes. "My competitive side kicks in. So the thought that I maybe couldn't do it made me be like, 'Oh, yeah, I'm doin' it!' We put so much preparation into it. Justin [Bruening, Jamie, her boyfriend, who along with Jacob Young (JR), was the only other cast member in the episode] and I worked with a private coach, we worked on it together.... We put a lot of time into this episode. We usually don't have that luxury, but this time we did; this took priority. And shooting it, too, we knew it was a big deal. Everyone was there. Julie was coming down to the set; Angela [Tessinari], who was directing, she was just so in there and they were so patient with us. And if we felt we didn't like where a take went, usually they're like, 'No, it's fine, let's move on,' but this time they were like, 'Let's do it again. We loved that take, girls, but let's try something else,' and we'd go in a totally different direction. They took the time and they were as invested in this episode as Eden and I were, so that was a really good feeling. We were all there, we were all in it together, and hopefully, the finished product shows it."

And how's this for dedication? Both Riegel and Havins skipped Cameron Mathison's (Ryan) splashy Halloween bash to stay home and study in preparation for the big event. "All we did all Halloween weekend was study," Havins reports. "Cam was like, 'Where were you?' And Eden and Justin and I were like, 'Sorry, we couldn't go!' It was that important to all of us."