A literary element that, at first, seems to have no purpose but is later revealed to be important to the plot. This is commonly thought of as a parallel of foreshadowing, but it is more properly interpreted as "do not include any unnecessary elements in a story."
The return of Carmelita Spats in The Slippery Slope after her seemingly unnecessaryappearance in The Austere Academy is an example of Chekhov's gun.
"One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." -Anton Chekhov
A Chekhov’s Firing Squad is when a TV show or movie has almost no plot in the first several episodes, and then proceeds to pull all triggers at once. The way that this turns out is a show feeling bland, with presumably filler episodes for most of the season, though these episode actually build foreshadowing and silent plot. These small, unnoticed details go completely unheard or said, until they all hit you at once like a freight train.
If a ball-gag appears in a work of erotica, one or more characters must use said ball-gag before the story's end. Variation of Chekhov's "gun on the mantle." Bonus points if you put the ball-gag on a mantle.
That ball-gag hasn't been used yet, but it seems important - it must be a Chekhov's Ball-Gag!