This episode centers around Rei and her relationship with Gendou. In a flasback sequence, Rei was piloting EVA unit 00, though the expiriment failed, and the EVA went haywire, ejecting the storage plug that Rei was in. Gendou rushes to the scene, opening the heated doors with his bare hands, burning them in the process, but rescuing Rei from the capsule. His glasses were also cracked, which became useless to Gendou, but Rei keeps them as a souvenir within her room. This episode opened up a lot of questions to be asked.
Earlier in the series I had the impression Gendou cared little for anything else besides his work, but to see him rush towards Rei in such a dramatic way made it suspicious. What is Gendou's true intentions? Later on in the episode, the fifth angel, who takes the form of a pyramid shape, appears directly on the top of headquarters, penetrating its various plate armours with a drill of its own. When they try to make an assault using Shinji, it immediately fires a plasma beam that burns through much of the Evangelions armour. What's instored for Shinji now?