- Rei has very recently been seriously injured (implicitly, during EVA-00's activation test). She's still in her plug suit, is in severe pain, and when she topples off the gurney some of her wounds open up and start bleeding again.
- Gendo was injured during EVA-00's activation test, suffering full-thickness burns on his hands that resulted in severe scarring. However, these injuries are several weeks old, since he's almost always seen wearing his iconic white gloves right from the start of the series.
- Some time between EVA-00's activation test and episode 5, Rei has managed to retrieve the broken glasses that Gendo left sitting on the floor of the test cell.
- In the flashback in episode 5, Rei does not appear to be seriously injured when Gendo opens the ejected entry plug. She's still sitting in the seat, with both hands gripping the control handles.
Point 1 suggests that EVA-00's activation test occurred very recently (days, if not hours prior to the start of episode 1), whereas points 2 & 3 suggest that it occurred several weeks prior to the start of episode 1. Point 4 contradicts points 1-3 because it appears to show that Rei wasn't seriously injured during the activation test.
Any thoughts on this? In the manga Rei could have exacerbated her pre-existing injuries when she tried to fight Sachiel in EVA-01, but this event does not happen in the anime.