The coffee mug on Gibbs' table towards the end has the name "Ralph" on it, a tribute to the late Ralph Waite who played Gibbs's father Jackson Gibbs.
In some scenes Pauley Perrette's face seem to be puffy. This is because it is a allergic reaction to hair dye she had which nearly killed her.
"Twenty klicks" is slang for twenty kilometers. Though the United States is one of the few countries that doesn't use the metric system to measure distance, the military uses it almost exclusively in order to facilitate communication with allied forces around the world.
Opening credits were updated for season 12 to include showing at least four screencaps of the new episode (along with one screencap of Gibbs looking at his model boat from season 11). This occurs as the series title is displayed.
The working title of the episode was "The Most Dangerous Game", undoubtedly a reference to the classic story by Richard Connell.