VisionQuest Episodes 5 and 6 took the stakes of the series even higher, as Ultron made his move on the female syntheziod, Jacosta, while Vision made a move to rescue his son Tommy from the Paladin. However, as the A.I. is evolving in its own corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it isn’t stopping the show from making some bigger crossover connections along the way. Take, for example, the return of (SPOILERS!) the MCU’s very first villain: Raza (Faran Tahir), leader of the Ten Rings sect that kidnapped Tony Stark and forced him to create the Iron Man armor.
But while MCU fans probably got a thrill from seeing Raza make a comeback, they may not have spotted the other character cameo – unless you’ve been a longtime fan of VisionQuest showrunner Terry Matalas.
The Terry Matalas original character Dale has appeared in the latest episode of ‘VISIONQUEST.’
The character, played by Brian Quinn, has previously appeared in ‘12 Monkeys,’ ‘MacGyver’ and ‘Star Trek: Picard.’ pic.twitter.com/XnMwhtcxWk
Terry Matalas likes to pull the same move as many genre greats: referencing a character or event from one series in another. Matalas’s go-to has been the character “Dale,” played by Brian Quinn, best known as a member of the Tenderloins comedy troupe that stars in the hit series Impractical Jokers. A longtime friend of Matalas, Quinn has made appearances as Dale in the showrunner’s 12 Monkeys TV reboot, his 2020 MacGyver reboot, and Star Trek: Picard (as the new owner of Guinan’s pit bull – big responsibility).
Dale makes his MCU debut in VisionQuest as a lonely crypto-bro who got catfished by an AI into coming to the city of Madripoor for a romance with someone who doesn’t exist. He laments all this to Tommy’s pickpocket friend Lisa (Lauren Morais), never realizing his bad trip (and bad luck with women) is about to get much worse when his wallet goes missing.
One of the signature things about Dale is his ugly tie with an insane design on it. He’s worn it in all three cameos he’s made on Terry Matalas TV shows – but clearly he’s on vacation in VisionQuest. Fear not, though: if you look closely, you can see that the tie’s design is still present, as in the design on Dale’s hat. Dale wouldn’t be Dale without it.
Through Dale, Terry Matalas is linking different franchises together like Infinity Stones in a glove. It would be hilarious to eventually reveal that Dale is some kind of all-powerful cosmic entity that truly does exist in all these universes at once. Or, it’s a gag we can gladly keep running with. As the meme says: it’s a “Dale Cinematic Universe,” and we’re all just living in it.
VisionQuest is streaming on Disney+.
