The Austere Academy: Part One - S2-E1
Trivia: Mr. Poe rhapsodizes over a saccharine sweet book called 'The Pony Party.' That was the title of the fake book printed on the reverse of the dust jacket of 'Lemony Snicket: An Unauthorized Autobiography.'
Trivia: While reading the Anhkana, Ed compares its gruesome contents to writing by Bret Easton Ellis. Ellis is famous for having written the graphically violent novels on which American Psycho and its sequel The Rules of Attraction are based.
Trivia: Jason Ralph, who plays TV producer Mike Carr, is Rachel Brosnahan's (Midge) real-life husband.
Trivia: Gary Cole and Tim Matheson both worked together on The West Wing, both playing Vice Presidents to Josiah Bartlett. The show nods to their West Wing tenure in an elevator scene where Gary Cole stares at Tim Matheson and asks if he knows him from somewhere.
Chapter 11 - S2-E3
Trivia: The idea of "mental contamination" mentioned at the start of the episode is real, and the demonstration using cheerleaders is based on fact. 5 cheerleaders and 5 other students had seizures in a town in 2002, in 1952 165 cheerleaders fainted before half time at a football game. A famous incident was in Le Roy in 2011 - those who were featured in the press took longer to recover than those who didn't, suggesting a strong social/communication basis.
