The Quail

Molly McAlister (aka The Quail) is a recurring character from the Netflix series, Project Mc². She is the chief intelligence agent of NOV-8 (pronounced "innovate"), a secret government group of teenage female operatives--one of them being her daughter, McKeyla McAlister.

She is played by Danica McKellar.

The Quail originally serves as a major protagonist of the series; however, in episode 5.02, "Nanobots, Souffles and Gray Goo, Oh My," she appeared as the main villainess of McKeyla's nightmare. The episode had McKeyla reliving her failure on a mission in the previous episode, "If You Fail On Mars, Can Anyone Hear You Scream," and originally began with the ceremony from "A Royal Pain," where McKeyla was giving her code name: the Owl. It is later followed the nightmarish sequence where McKeyla is put on trial by the Quail, who appears as a harshly evil judge. She mocks her daughter's failure and cemented her heel persona in the sequence by stating that she knew McKeyla wasn't ready for her promotion, before taking her pin from her, causing the other agents to laugh at McKeyla at the end of the sequence