Castle talks about a plot on "General Hospital" involving a weather machine capable of freezing the world. This was an actual plotline from General Hospital.
To play on the killer's guilty conscience, trying to trick him or her into revealing their guilt, Castle creates and inserts new dialogue into a "Temptation Lane" shooting that mirrors the events leading up to the murder. As a writer, he is paying homage to William Shakespeare's "Hamlet", in which the title character does the same thing in a play within the play in order to verify his suspicion about Claudius' role in the late King Hamlet's alleged murder.
The title of this episode is a reference to the long-running soap opera One Life to Live. Nathan Fillion, who plays Richard Castle, was a series regular on One Life to Live (as Joey Buchanan) from 1994-97. During the DVD commentary for the musical "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog", Nathan Fillion went off on an unrelated tangent about his days acting on One Life to Live. One of the things he said was: "The only question you have to ask yourself is 'How good a Joey Buchanan was I?' A man's 'Buchananity' is what separates him from reptiles and lawn furniture."
The soap opera set for Temptation Lane was actually the set for All My Children (1970). Two actors from that show, Rebecca Budig and Cameron Mathison, guest star here as soap actors.
"General Hospital" and the weather machine. The 'Ice Princess' story arc ran in 1981 and represented a major breakthrough for American daytime soap operas. Thanks to the more creative writing (amnesia, infidelity, and returning from the dead had gotten a bit old) everyone from college students to office workers started watching soaps.