Queen Mantis episode 4 review — Vigilante morality, hidden scars, and a chilling knock at the door

Queen Mantis at its midpoint refuses to soften its edges, with episode 4 delivering a tense and layered chapter where survival, morality, and the failures of institutions collide, leaving us torn between outrage at injustice and unease at the methods used to fight it.

The midseason episode of Queen Mantis keeps raising the stakes while weaving the personal and the political. Every choice Yi-shin makes cuts deeper into the themes of justice and silence, and every revelation pulls the family further into the storm.

The vigilante morality of Yi-shin

Yi-shin’s escape in this episode of Queen Mantis is built not on brute force but on patience and calculation. The oil beetle she cultivated in secret becomes her weapon, its poison carefully applied to incapacitate a guard without killing him.

She could have taken his life or even stolen his identity, but instead she leaves him alive and only takes his shoes, a strange but telling choice that underlines her sense of control.

Yi-shin’s victims so far are not random. They are abusers of women and children, men who wielded power to destroy others. Even her own father knew her husband was a “scumbag,” as he says himself, but chose silence.

Yi-shin’s killings expose the rot hidden behind respectability and force us to ask if justice denied is justice rewritten by blood.

The silence of the police in Queen Mantis

Early in the episode, we see the senior detective walking past a woman being beaten by her husband. He does nothing but talk to the absuive husband because the victim doesn’t file a complaint.

This image burns into the episode’s fabric, showing how institutions hide behind procedure to avoid intervention. Victims remain trapped, too terrified to speak, and those tasked with protecting them look away.

Against that backdrop, Yi-shin’s actions become twisted but cathartic. As the friend of Su-yeol’s wife points out, those who endured abuse might not feel joy at the deaths of their tormentors, but they would feel relief, a release that the system never granted them.

A son’s conflicted path

Su-yeol, caught between his duty as a detective and his bloodline as Yi-shin’s son, continues to spiral into doubt.

The copycat murders add a cruel mirror. Is Min-jae, the boy she once tried to protect, now replicating her violence? His charisma makes the possibility all the more chilling, because history shows that psychopaths often disarm through charm.

Su-yeol doesn’t know if he’s pursuing justice or chasing shadows of his mother’s legacy.

Losses and betrayals

Gu-wan’s arc ends violently, struck down in a hit-and-run that leaves no space for redemption. His final words echo the uneasy resemblance between Su-yeol and Yi-shin, deepening the sense that the past refuses to release its grip.

Meanwhile, Jung-yeon, Su-yeol’s wife, continues to draw suspicion. Her role may prove pivotal as Yi-shin steps directly into her world.

The closing image of the midseason episode of Queen Mantis, Yi-shin at Jung-yeon’s door, is the perfect blend of dread and inevitability. Family and case are now indistinguishable, and the knock on the door feels like fate arriving.

Rating with a touch of flair: 5 out of 5 oil beetles crawling through cracks in the system.