The appearance of Finn as an adult was based on Howard Keel's character from the 1954 musical "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", which is a favorite of episode co-storyboarder Wolfhard. The episode was viewed by 2.75 million viewers and received a 0.6 rating among people between the ages of 18 and 49. Oliver Sava of "The A.V. Club" wrote positively of the way the episode focused on character development, noting that the episode bore similarities to both "The Wizard of Oz" and "Captain America". Similarly, Colin O'Boyle of Geek Smash compared the episode to the "Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis. For his work on the episode's character designs, Andy Ristaino won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Individual Achievement In Animation" at the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards, making it the series' first Emmy win.