The interviews with people describing stories of love, interspersed between the continuing story of Hughie and Starlight, borrows directly from When Harry Met Sally which starred Meg Ryan, Jack Quaid's (Hughie) real life mother.
The character Mother's Milk wears a t-shirt of the Black Panther Party's Free Food Program that provided a free breakfast to African-American children in the 1960's and was the precursor to the federally funded free food program provided to school children since the 1970's.
The elevator scene between Homelander and Starlight when she asks Homelander, "So tell me, am I lying?" pays tribute to Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken's scene in True Romance.
The song Hughie and Annie (StarLight) sing to in the car is called, We Didn't Start the Fire from the album "Storm Front" by Billy Joel.
Nothing Like It in the World is the name of the 10th story arc in the original 72-issue comic book series and the 3 companion-piece 6-issue mini-series run of The Boys.