The episode is the second installment of a three-episode arc that began with the mid-season finale "This Mortal Coil" (also taken from Hamlet's soliloquy), in which nanite-created copies of Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard and his team give their real counterparts on Atlantis a device that reveals the presence of over thirty Asuran battleships in the Pegasus galaxy. The episode resolves the main Asuran storyline with their permanent defeat at the hands of the Atlantis Expedition. The episode received generally positive critical reviews.