This episode is a backdoor pilot for a spin-off series featuring some starring and guest starring actors from main series: Famke Janssen (Susan "Scotie" Hargrave), Ryan Eggold (Tom Keen), Edi Gathegi (Matias Solomon) and Tawny Cypress (Nez Rowan). The spin-off was titled The Blacklist: Redemption (2017) and was canceled after eight episodes.
Hargrave's wall includes a picture of Famke Janssen, who portrays Hargrave, with Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa.
A plot point here is a Hispanic Senator (Diaz) that is running for U.S. President. The air date was May 12, 2016. At the time of production, a Hispanic Senator, Ted Cruz, was running for U.S. President. In early May he suspended his campaign.
Famke Janssen and Edi Gathegi both played characters in Marvel's X-Men movies. Janssen played Jean Grey/Phoenix in X-Men (2000), X2 (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), and Gathegi played Darwin in X-Men: First Class (2011).