The episode began to clearly delineate the personalities of The Lone Gunmen. Executive producer Frank Spotnitz explained, "Up 'Unusual Suspects', they were sort of interchangeable in the information they delivered. But then Vince, who loved the characters and really wanted a chance to dig more deeply into them, created a back story and they became a lot more interesting." Actor Dean Haglund, who played Langly, said of the episode, "What we read in the script wasn't really our origins as we'd imagined it. I'd thought we were all in a university garage band together or something. Bruce thought he was a photocopier repair man." Much of the episode's action focused on Byers, played by Bruce Harwood. This experience was new for him, and he noted, "I don't think I'd ever done an episode where I was the lead character. But I felt like the lead because it was my story about falling in love with this woman and then dragging these other two schmucks into the disaster that followed." Vince Gilligan was particularly happy with Byers's characterization in this episode, later admitting, "I just loved the idea of Byers working for the government and being this very gung-ho pro-government guy. That's just a fundamental drama where you take a character on a journey and the journey take him 180 degrees from who he original[ly was."