The chills continue in episodes 3 and 4 of “Queen Mantis” where we find out quite a bit about our Mother’s past and what led her to becoming a serial killer. The recaps for both episodes are below!
Queen Mantis Episode 3 Recap
The episode opens with a past murder in a small town. It turns out this is the town where the Mantis performed all her killings. The town itself is destitute and broke, with more than half the population out of work. People are drunk all the time, and the husbands of the town take full advantage of mistreating their wives due to their situations.
Our faithful detective Choi Jung Hoi appears to be the town’s only police officer and rides his bike around town, ringing its bell to let the people know an officer is nearby. But this does little to help the women being abused.
Enter Mantis, who takes matters into her own hands.
Cut to the present day, where we left off with Detective Cha Yu Seol finding the father in the washing machine. This episode starts with him continuing to work passionately to bring the father victim back to life with CPR. Thankfully, the father is revived, spitting out water and rolling over to cough relentlessly, and we all breathe a sigh of relief! However, they are no closer to finding the real copycat serial killer.
Yu Seol visits his mother for help on this serial killer case, but his mother only wants to know about Yu Seol’s life and reminds him that this fake copycat knew about his wife and his real identity, so he should be eliminated.
Yu Seol isn’t about that life and leaves, but he does reminisce fondly on happy memories with his mother.
Back at the station, Yu Seol works with Detective Kim Na Hee to figure out who the copycat is. Na Hee asks for another chance at talking to copycat Seo Goo Wan, but he is still in a coma, and they do not know when he will wake up.
Yu Seol goes home to see his wife in her shop, clearly worried about her. When he leaves, we see a suspicious person watching him.
Elsewhere, the copycat picks another unfortunate victim and puts him in his koi fish pond. The police find the body, and it is a circus of reporters.
When Yu Seol visits his mother next, he asks her about the sixth person she killed that the copycat knows about. He does not get an answer and leaves. Meanwhile, the mother keeps feeding these bugs she is keeping around in her ceiling.
The latest murder is all over the news. So when Yu Seol goes home, his grandfather calls and tells him not to see his mother again. However, Yu Seol’s wife picks up and fully thinks Yu Seol’s mother is dead. The grandfather backtracks quickly, but this plants the seed of doubt in the wife’s mind. The wife investigates and goes to Yu Seol’s hometown.
Meanwhile, Yu Seol’s investigation leads him and the other detectives to a small town in search of the 6th victim that the copycat most likely murdered. This makes Yu Seol remember fond memories of his father while growing up. These memories lead Yu Seol to think they need to find a well on the property. They do, and they also find the 6th victim’s body at the bottom of the well.
Yu Seol goes to his own home and looks in the well. There, he finds skeletal bones and a ring. He visits his mother, where he finds out that the ring belongs to her.
She confesses and says the bones belong to his father, and we see a flashback of how the father was often drunk and abusive. One night, she had had enough and killed him to protect Yu Seol.
Yu Seol is shaken up by this and tells her he remembers only fond memories of his father. She says there were good times, but they did not outweigh the bad times. Yu Seol is so upset that he attacks his mother. She is fine with it and tells him to kill her if he can.
Queen Mantis Episode 4 Recap
We open with the destitute mining village of Usan again, and we see the work of the Mantis, where she left a victim in the washroom.
Cut to the present day, where the team investigates the copycat murder of the man in the koi fish pond. They are at another dead end.
A surprise finding in this episode is that Yu Seol’s grandfather knew that his mother killed his father. After the mother left home, he knew she had married that town’s jerk and would secretly visit her to see how she was doing. He visited on the day she killed his father. However, he couldn’t turn her in. He didn’t want to ruin his only daughter’s life.
Yu Seol continues to try and get help from his mother, but the Mantis is only concerned with whether Yu Seol is going to let the fake copycat get away. If he gets away, then he will tell everyone the connection Yu Seol and his wife have to the Mantis. She thinks it’s best if Yu Seol kills that guy.
But this visit gives Yu Seol a clue as to who the copycat could be. The copycat just knows too many things about Yu Seol that no one knows, like a ball they found in the small town where the victim was in the well.
Meanwhile, the wife goes to Yu Seol’s hometown with a friend of hers to visit Yu Seol’s mom’s grave. She finds it and feels bad that she didn’t trust Yu Seol.
However, there they meet a man who grew up with Yu Seol before he moved away. This man is clearly the copycat but comes across as a kindhearted small town person. He ends up giving them a ride home and manages to run into Yu Seol on his way out.
Yu Seol invites him up for a drink and a bite, then tells his mentor, Detective Jung Ho, to run the plates on the car while the town friend is upstairs.
The town friend is clearly no good and makes several hints while eating about how Yu Seol is the son of the serial killer, but he doesn’t come right out and say it, so the wife and the friend are still clueless.
When the old town friend leaves, Detective Jung Ho follows him, and Yu Seol goes to the address that is on the license plate. There, he finds all sorts of incriminating evidence that this guy is a copycat, such as dioramas of murders.
When the town friend gets home, Yu Seol arrests him and takes him in for interrogation. It isn’t long before the copycat cracks and creepily all but reveals that he is the copycat.
At the same time, we find out what Mantis was doing with all those bugs. It turns out those bugs are beetles that secrete a toxin. She uses that toxin to knock out the guard and escape.
Also, at the same time, at the hospital, the fake copycat breaks out by knocking out Detective Kim Na Hee and fleeing from the hospital.
Yu Seol gets the call that the fake copycat escaped and starts his pursuit of him on foot around Seoul. But the fake copycat gets hit by a car and bleeds out when Yu Seol gets to him. It is unclear who was driving this car.
The episode ends with the Mantis showing up at Yu Seol’s house. His wife answers the door.
Wow! What an ending. So what do y’all think is going to happen in the next episode when mother dearest and wifey speak? Out of everything going on, that is what I am most looking forward to next week!
You can watch “Queen Mantis” on KOCOWA with professional subtitles!
