a massive malfunction during the first activation test for causes the eva to go "berserk." to prevent rei from being seriously injured, the entry plug was ejected, and gendo pried the plug's superheated door open with his bare hands to extract rei. his hands have severe scarring because of this and he is never shown without gloves (except in episode 5, when he briefly takes them off; when shinji sees they are burned, ritsuko tells him the story).