Sela Ward has worked with Jeffrey Nordling before where Sela Ward played a suburban soccer mom in her forties, who had recently separated from her philandering husband Jeffrey Nordling on the ABC series Once and Again.
Jason Wiles (John Curtis) plays officer Maurice "Bosco" Boscorelli in another police procedure drama Third Watch (1999).
Similar to this episode's title, in Elementary (2012), Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) tells "Oscar Rankin" (Michael Weston) that he is a "a despicable means to an end."