This episode was inspired by the "Kidney Thief" urban legend, which tells the story of someone who wakes up in a bathtub of ice with only one kidney after being surgically removed for transplantation.
This is the first episode that did not involve a homicide.
Dr. Lieber (Lonny Price) makes a joke that he's seen "Sweeney Todd" three times. Ten years later, Lonny Price directed a TV movie version of "Sweeney Todd" titled "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Concert (2001)."
While trying to reduce Woodleigh's culpability and involvement in the crime, his attorney tells Adam Schiff "...For god sakes Adam, he's taking hydromorphone for his heart". Hydromorphone is an opioid and is given for moderate to severe pain, certainly not for heart problems.
The episode never explains how Drew McDaniel is lured into the apartment where the surgery is performed. He states he was walking through the park, but then remembers nothing until he is found on the park bench. The anesthesia machine is delivered to, and picked up from, the nurse's apartment, and afterwards they take McDaniel to the park in a wheelchair. McDaniel had not been mugged or drugged. The trip from the park to the apartment is never addressed by anyone.