The detectives investigate a rapper who was inspired by the movie Scarface (1983), which Richard Belzer appeared in briefly in a night club scene.
This is the second episode where Benson and Stabler have made physical contact other then a rub of the shoulders or crime scene reenactment.
In order to reinforce Stabler's cover, Olivia poses as a prostitute. Mariska Hargitay once portrayed a prostitute in the film Leaving Las Vegas (1995).
The gibbon rescued by the SVU appears to be a Lars Gibbon primate. The name given to it in the show is the "white crested highland gibbon", although there is no such species. The Lars Gibbon is also known as the white-handed gibbon. The gibbon is also clearly too large to have been contained within a basketball.
While filming the chase scene towards the end of the episode, Mariska Hargitay was seriously injured when she did a stunt that involved her jumping and landing on a cushion. Three months after the episode was filmed, Hargitay claimed she was feeling short of breath and had chest pains. An x-ray revealed that 50% of her right lung had collapsed as a result of the injury. Due to the injury, Hargitay was absent from the S10.E18 "Baggage" so she could recover.