Troy Baker who plays James in the episode is the voice and MOCAP actor who plays Joel in the games. Baker said he thought he was going to wind up playing a clicker or one of the infected on the show.
Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann considered Troy Baker's inclusion in the series important due to his proximity to the games; meanwhile, Baker never assumed he would be involved in the series, except perhaps as a small cameo like a clicker. Upon being approached by Mazin and Druckmann, Baker did not initially remember James from the games; he expected a small role but was surprised by the character's significance upon reading the script.
Troy went on to say that playing James, who is based on another character from the game, was "appealing" to him as he enjoys "playing a villain to show you he's not the villain." "So, when it came to approaching James, I asked, 'How can we make him not a henchman? How can we make him not just this David's 'Thug A,' and make it so that he has some actual stake in the story?' And for me, it's all about understanding that every character we meet throughout this story is somehow a reflection of Joel and or Ellie." Baker explained: "James was a good guy, and this world has been hard on him too. And if you look at these people, they arrived here to what they thought would be the promised land, and they had one hard winter, which turned them into the worst versions of themselves." The actor said the episode and James' arc in particular serve as a reminder perhaps that "we are all one bad day away from being, at least by some degree, the worst version of ourselves."
Bella Ramsey found production on the episode "exhausting" but among her favorite on set.
Craig Mazin chose to open the episode with David reading Revelation 21 as it relates to the new world exceeding the old one, and dealing with grief and tragedy.