Clearly inspired, at least in part, by the real life prison break of Richard Matt and David Sweat. The two men escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York in June, 2015 with the help of a female prison employee who was allegedly involved sexually with one or both of them. After 3 weeks on the run, Matt was shot and killed by law enforcement officers; Sweat was wounded and apprehended 2 days later only a mile and a half from the Canadian border.
First part of a crossover with Chicago P.D. (2014) season 3 episode 14, The Song of Gregory Williams Yates (2016)
Digging a hole in the prison wall and covering it with a poster is directly from the escape used in The Shawshank Redemption (1994).
This episode is a continuation of the events that began on a three-part series crossover event that started with We Called Her Jellybean (2015) and were continued on The Number of Rats (2015) and Daydream Believer (2015). It is also continuing events that happened earlier in season 17 in Devil's Dissections (2015) and Criminal Pathology (2015).
This marks the final appearance of Carl Rudnick.