Craig Mazin enjoyed the use of Ellie's joke book in the game and felt its inclusion in the series allowed effective development between her and Joel.
In the episode, Kansas City replaces Pittsburgh as seen in the game. Craig Mazin found the production locations in Canada more closely imitated Kansas City and felt Pittsburgh was not important enough to the story to justify the difficulty in manufacturing it. Co-creator Neil Druckmann, considered it a superficial change as the characters are more important than the location. He and Mazin felt the additional distance to Kansas City justified the story beats and character development.
Perry, one of Kathleen's men, is played by Jeffrey Pierce, who gave his voice and motion captured the character of Tommy (Joel's brother) in the video game.
Joel needs to help Ellie crawl through a small window, so she can open the door from the other side. This is a game mechanic players are familiar with because Joel would have to boost Tess and Ellie up to high places, so they can drop him a ladder or find an alternate path.
Hank Williams's Alone and Forsaken (1951) plays at the beginning of the episode. The song is also present in the video game when Joel and Ellie enters Pittsburgh and is used in the first teaser trailer for the TV series.