Freakier Friday Features A Lindsay Lohan Easter Egg You Probably Missed

Although Lindsay Lohan says in an interview with Perri Nemiroff that director Nisha Ganatra said, "We're not doing Easter eggs," "Freakier Friday" has plenty of playful allusions to both the original movie and Lohan's career that will make any fan of hers and millennium pop culture smile. In Ethan Anderton's /Film review of "Freakier Friday," he praises director Nisha Ganatra and writer Jordan Weiss for using "callbacks and other returning characters sparingly and naturally." Anna rocks that iconic cherry-red guitar, Mr. Bates enjoys torturing his students, and we're still swooning over Chad Michael Murray's Jake. Over 20 years later, Anna isn't romantically involved with Jake anymore, which makes perfect sense, since most people don't end up marrying their high school sweetheart.

"Freakier Friday" doesn't bludgeon you over the head with nostalgia or try too hard to replicate the original, but it does give gentle winks to Lindsay Lohan's career in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a kid. Elaine Hendrix, who played the evil potential stepmother Meredith Blake in "The Parent Trap," appears as a magazine editor Anna briefly works with. Another reference nods to Lindsay Lohan's best movie of all, but you need to pay close attention. Even off screen, Lohan has been tipping her hat to her past movies, wearing outfits inspired by her iconic costumes at premieres and events — including the pretty lilac skirt set from the end of the original "Freaky Friday." But it sounds like this particular callback may have happened on accident.

During the opening montage of "Freakier Friday," we see a collage of Polaroid photos, calendar pages, and cut-out magazine lettering. It has a recognizably Y2K aesthetic and showcases Anna and her new beau Eric dating around LA. They visit the Hollywood Bowl, Santa Monica Pier, and go hiking near the Hollywood sign. The montage ends with an image of their wedding invitation. The date reads October 3rd above the happy couple and their disgruntled daughters. October 3rd pops up again when Anna scrolls through her iPhone calendar and in a close-up of Tess's planner.

That is the fated day that Cady talks to her crush, Aaron Samuels, in "Mean Girls." "On October 3, he asked me what day it was," she narrates. Cady then responds in a starry-eyed daze, "It's October 3rd." The scene perfectly captures those moments in girlhood where the briefest interaction with your crush was EVERYTHING. Fans have since declared October 3rd as #MeanGirlsDay, celebrating by sharing GIFs of the scene-turned-meme, posting their favorite quotes, and even wearing pink. In 2021, Lindsay Lohan herself made a social media post honoring the occasion. Tina Fey and Busy Philipps also co-hosted a "Mean Girls" viewing party on October 3, 2019 via Facebook for the release of the Broadway musical.

Lindsay Lohan was the first to notice this special date on the invitation, "I was like, 'Does anyone realize this is October 3rd? That's Mean Girls Day ... I genuinely don't think anyone realized it," she told Perri Nemiroff. "I was like, 'Let's leave it, it's an Easter egg,'" she continued. It's yet another moment in "Freakier Friday" where we can remember and appreciate how Lindsay Lohan was such an indelible part of early aughts adolescence and celebrate her comeback.