Mr. Poe says at the beginning of the episode, "It's a catastrophe! It's unprecedented! It's off-book!" In the book, Mr. Poe takes the Baudelaires to the Mill, while in the series they escaped to the Mill themselves. He says this to a fish merchant, who is the author of the books himself, Daniel Handler.
Dr. Orwell is played by Catherine O'Hara. She originally played Justice Strauss in the first adaptation of the series, A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004).
Lemony Snicket references the books' prequel series, 'All The Wrong Questions' when he says "Wish I could say she was right, but Violet was asking all the wrong questions".
The episode contains many references to the dystopian novel "1984" written by George Orwell. These references include Dr Georgina Orwell's name, the conditions of the lumber mill (e.g. poor wages, rationing, cookie-cutting style tasks during work, strict curfew, and everyone wearing jumpsuits of the same colour), thanking the lumber mill for their lifestyle and brainwashing.
Klaus also references The Great Gatsby when standing before the optometrist building noting that the symbol of eye glasses in the book were "god staring down and judging society as a moral wasteland". In the same way, Big Brother in 1984 watches over society and judges what is right and what is wrong.
Lemony Snicket advises viewers to stop watching and just imagine that there's a pony party on the other side of the gate. Some editions of the book Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography have a reversible book jacket with an illustration of a pony party on the inner side.