Neil Marshall recently sat down with Buzzfeed to talk about his Emmy nomination for direction of season four’s penultimate episode, “The Watchers on the Wall.”

The interview is lengthy and well worth the read, but if you’re in a rush, or don’t have the time to scroll through a million gifs from the episode, we’ve got the greatest hits version laid out for you below:

The episode took nine weeks to complete with four of them going to preproduction, three to filming, and (we’re guessing) the remaining two to postproduction.

Filming took place in Belfast where the 31 minute on-screen battle was filmed over two of the three weeks of filming.

Mammoths were completely VFX, though on set they were comprised “by four guys in green Lycra suits at each of its legs.”

Marshall’s favorite scene from the episode is Jon leaving the top of the Wall to join the battle below. He calls it a “really satisfying moment dramatically.”

The incredible 360 degree shot of the battle took two hours to block and rehearse and took seven takes to get perfect.

Ygritte’s on-screen death was accompanied by more than a few real life tears. Marshall commenting that “as emotional as it was for me, it was 10 times worse for the cast and crew who’d worked with Rose for two or three years.”

He’s exceptionally happy with the resulting episode: ” I’d never say 100% happy, but certainly not far off!”

Shylah: Although I was a little disappointed that Neil Marshall wasn’t talking about our little corner of the internet here on WotW, it’s still a great interview with a great director about a great episode of television, nonetheless!

Also, as this is my first official post here on the Wall, I want to publicly say thank you to the Watchers for allowing me to take the black! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go try to teach dirty words to the ravens.