This episode's artifact is Koschei's Needle. Koschei the Deathless is a traditional Slavic folklore villain who is unkillable because he hides his life force. Often it is hidden in a needle, which is in an egg, which is in something else, which is somewhere inaccesable.
The line "Check out the big brain on Baird" is homage to Samuel L. Jackson's line "Check out the big brain on Brad" from Pulp Fiction (1994).
Every grave/tomb marker for Nicole shows she is 36 years old. Likewise, Rachel Nichols was 36 years old as of the December 2017 air date, turning 37 in January 2018.
Christopher Heyerdahl (Rasputin) and Noah Wyle (Flynn) have worked together on Wyle's previous TNT network series The Pickett Line (2013).
Eve refers to Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin's henchmen as Boris and Natasha. This refers directly to The Bullwinkle Show (1959) (original title was "Rocky and His Friends"), where Rocky and Bullwinkle's primary antagonists were Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale.