Cote de Pablo, who portrays Ziva, described the impact of the episode on her character and its filming: "Ziva had been keeping a lot of secrets, and in the finale she was struggling.
Mark Harmon commented on the choice to rewrite Gibbs' backstory in the third season, saying, "I kid about it, but for a number of years here, I was playing that Gibbs was married three times, and then all of a sudden I found out that he'd been married four.