One of the biggest stories in the lead up to FX‘s The Shards was the fact that the Ryan Murphy show paired Cindy Crawford‘s lookalike daughter Kaia Gerber and rising star Homer Gere on screen. It was instant casting catnip for fans of ’80s and ’90s celebrity gossip because Gere just so happens to be the son of Richard Gere, aka Cindy Crawford’s first husband.* However, since the show debuted on August 5, most of the cheeky references to Gerber and Gere’s parents’ legacy have been off-screen. That is, until last week’s all-new episodes of The Shards.

In The Shards Episode 6 “Homecoming Part One” and Episode 7 “Homecoming Part Two,” Steven (Jordan Roth) designs a float for Debbie (Hayes Warner) and her friends inspired by the work of American Gigolo‘s production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti. Susan (Kaia Gerber) thinks it’s too perfect, her hapless boyfriend Thom (Graham Campbell) doesn’t understand it at all, but Robert (Homer Gere) pulls the Ferdinando Scarfiotti reference out of his back pocket. It’s a hilarious moment that underscores Robert’s intelligence and directly sees Homer Gere reference one of his father’s most iconic films.

According to The Shards executive producer Brad Simpson, this delightfully meta moment wasn’t planned.

“We didn’t set out to cast anybody with any sort of cultural resonance,” Simpson told DECIDER. “We really did the old school audition process — which is what we just did for Love Story — in-person auditions, mix and matches… We really believe in the screen test and also the chemistry between characters, and Ryan understands that. So we brought in the actors. They all read for different parts. People might read for Robert or for Bret, but then end up playing somebody else.”

“Homer obviously came in and you’re aware, ‘Oh, this is who he is.’ But it only started to hit us later that there was some sort of cultural reference because he himself is just so charismatic and so enigmatic. He’s a really nice guy underneath it all. But boy, can he play mystery and what’s really going on underneath it.”

Simpson explained that they did want The Shards to have “all these references to this very specific time in the ’80s and so they ended up landing on top of each other, but it wasn’t intentional.”

He also pointed out that these references will go over the heads of many of The Shards‘s biggest (and youngest) fans.

“It’s going to be interesting, because for a whole generation, there won’t be any sort of electricity or resonance about it,” he said. “But it is there. I think it’s there for any generation of actors who come after somebody else. It was there for Michael Douglas and Kirk Douglas.”

And it’s definitely there when Homer Gere namechecks American Gigolo‘s Ferdinando Scarfiotti for a kooky little callback.

*Homer Gere’s mom is Richard Gere’s second wife, Law & Order alum Carey Lowell, while Kaia Gerber is the daughter of Crawford’s long-time husband — and George Clooney’s tequila partner – Rande Gerber.