When Phillip drives away, the screen shows four movie posters. The latest released of these movies is Wall Street (1987), released on December 11, 1987. Moreover, a calendar that can briefly be seen at the travel agency reads "October 1987". As indicated in the opening text, this means the episode is around 3 years after the immediately preceding episode (the last episode of Season 5: The Americans: The Soviet Division (2017)).
The artwork 'created' by Erica Haskard in the episode is in actuality created by prominent New York painter Alyssa Monks.
The Soviet film that Paige is watching with Elizabeth and Claudia is "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" (1980). It is a life story of three girlfriends from youth to autumn ages, and also won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1981.
Oleg left a chalk mark on a Postal Service mailbox for Phillip to find. In the spy trade, this is known as a signal site. Signal sites are checked regularly and typically located in areas a spy or the handler passes during a normal day. If a mark is placed, this indicates that in-person meeting is requested or that a dead-drop (a place where items can be collected without risk of exposure of another agent) has been placed in a prearranged location.
Dead Hand, the episode title, is a phrase borrowed from property law, namely once the owner has died, said owner has little say how the property should be used from beyond the grave. Dead Hand was an actual program the Soviets almost had running at the end of the Cold War. It was such a system that if the "West" (read: USA) launched a "decapitory" strike (one that took out all of their higher up leaders) on the USSR, Dead Hand would automatically launch back.