Frankie complains that she cannot contact the IT lady to fix the campus Wi-Fi; Paget Brewster, who plays Frankie, also played the IT lady in Analysis of Cork-Based Networking (2014). Frankie saying that her e-mails to the I.T. Lady bounce back in Aramaic and when she calls her all she gets is a high-pitched sound that makes her nose bleed reference the science fiction trope about the paradoxical dangers of running into oneself - notably the video game BioShock Infinite (2013).
At 31 minutes long, this is the longest episode of Community.
Abed being fond of birds was already established back in Season One, as in Contemporary American Poultry (2010) the first item in Abed's list of "likes" was "birds".
Jeff's comment about an openly gay person being in the centre square is a reference to The Hollywood Squares (Daytime) (1965). This was a game show in which celebrities sat in 9 boxes and contestants had to use them to win at tic tac toe (noughts and crosses). The centre square was mostly occupied by actor Paul Lynde who was gay, and often made allusions to his sexuality in the show. The celebrity in the centre square was called on in every game, thus was more "powerful" than the celebs in the other squares.
References Whiplash (2014): the director's abuse of Chang mirrors Fletcher's abuse of Neimann, including bizarre metaphors and the director's similar wardrobe to that of Fletcher.