This is the last episode in which Michael Weston (Simon Marsden) appears until season thirteen's Child's Welfare (2012), as well as the last one to feature LisaGay Hamilton until season fourteen's Presumed Guilty (2013)
The song at the end is Lisa Lan (Fair Lisa), a traditional Welsh folk song in the Welsh language. Still popular with folk performers.
The song that plays over the end of the episode is called "Sense of Touch" by Mark Isham. This same song is played during another montage in the award winning Paul Haggis movie, "Crash". Ludacris had a major part in both of these productions.
Former prosecutors turned TV personalities, Nancy Grace and Star Jones, guest-star as themselves in this episode. Season 8 episode Haystack (2007), was based in part on the disappearance of two-year-old Trenton Duckett, and the subsequent suicide of his mother Melinda Duckett in 2006, who took her own life the day after being grilled by Nancy Grace during an interview for her show.
The music heard when Stabler is talking with Kathy is reminiscent of the music in the last scene of the final Twin Peaks (1990) episode.