Gift trees are delivered to Captain Renard by a man wearing a shirt whose logo reads "Dennis' 7 Dees" - an actual local Portland chain of landscaping and garden centers. Launched in 1927, the business became "7 Dees" in 1956 after the founding couples' daughter had seven children, all with first names that begin with the letter "D."
Sergeant Wu quotes and misquotes Shakespeare several times. He misquotes "A Midsummer Night's Dream" when he says "Love looks not with the eyes but with the heart/and therefore is lost to Cupid's mighty dart" (a variation on the epigram), and a moment later, "The course of true love never did run true," which alters a line by Lysander in Act I, scene 1 of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," which properly reads: "The course of true love never did run smooth...." However, when preparing to jump off the cliff, Wu correctly quotes from Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" speech, with "What dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil...."
Monroe correctly guesses the special coffee Rosalee has made for him as a Stumptown Coffee Roasters Colombian called "Mauricio Shattah Red Gesha," an actual premium coffee that Stumptown roasts only rarely and makes available for pre-sale only. In the fall of 2016, when most of Stumptown's coffees were priced around $18 for a package of 12 ounces, this one retailed at $75.
The primary story is a twist on Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and the secondary story was a variation on O Henry's "Ransom of Red Chief".
The epigram - "Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind,/And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind" - is from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Act I, scene 1. It is spoken in that play by one of the young lovers, Helena.