Aramintai

It's not unreasonable. Everybody dances around the issue, but societal dogmas aside, it's just nature. Men being older than women looks more ok than women being older than men in a relationship because of both sexes reproductive age - late childbearing often is wrought with complications so men look for younger, healthier and generally more good looking women to have a family. Men's reproductive age lasts a whole lot longer though and their looks generally are not under such scrutiny as women's.
Societal dogmas just reinforce this fact.

In this drama the age gap is unknown, but considering ML was one of FL mom's foster kids the difference can't be those whooping 12 years. There was some boy among the kids, but their gap looked negligible tbh. Maybe it was another boy, or maybe the gap is not that big.

Is that why there was a cameo character in episode 3? She was strong woman's mom who secretly was a bike riding vigilante.

https://mercy2908.wordpress.com/2018/12/25/snow-white-must-die-5-the-end-friday-november-21-2008-tuesday-25-november/

https://mercy2908.wordpress.com/2018/12/25/snow-white-must-die-5-the-end-friday-november-21-2008-tuesday-25-november/

What's more, ML's girl friend who visited him in jail all these years was also guilty.
So the real culprits in this drama are gonna be ML's 2 male friends, 1 female friend, that assemblywoman's husband who opened a rape assault consultancy (irony!). The rest of the characters are all gonna be trash to ML just to cover other people's crimes and because they're just trash. The only two good characters are the new detective (he was the main character in the novel (?)) and that young ex-med school girl who helped ML's mom at the kitchen. And also mom, of course.

I wouldn't be surprised if they went even further in this drama and added ML to the list. If you've watched Suspicious Partner - there was a vigilante villain there who did rape the girl in a gang bang, but got his mind twisted so much he suppressed his memories.

Yes.

Quite likely.

Are they gonna do the tired amnesia trope for the leads?
And how ML is alive all these years?

Are they gonna do the tired amnesia trope for the leads?
And how ML is alive all these years?

If it's anything like in the novel it's much worse.

Yea, all of those people, including his mother, never visited him in jail and when he returned I just wanted to scream at them in ML's stead - where were you all this time to act like you do now?! His only true friend is Na Gyeom, who never gave up on him, unless she's doing that out of guilt or something.
And the most annoying is the police chief - he didn't do anything to help ML, but now he offers "help". He most likely covered up someone else's crime, or at the very least didn't properly investigate after the most convenient culprit was found, but now he acts like he's Mr. Incorruptible Justice.
Anyway, everybody is sus except for ML's mother and that ex-med student who helped her at the kitchen. Newcomer police detective also doesn't seem to be involved.

Did you read the novel? How close are they following its plot?

Edit: I've browsed through some of its plot - fkn hell, if it's gonna be like this in the drama then can't trust anybody.

Also, that poster with hands covering ML's face - anybody else having Blind deja vu? They gonna troll us with it as well and reveal the rest of it later?

1. Police chief's son who is on meds and is on the spectrum (?). He knows too much about the crime scene judging by his paintings. Meds could be the consequence of what he did - they keep him docile. His father knew about him being a killer and threw his best friend's son under the bus to save his own son and own reputation.
2. Assemblywoman's husband who opened a consultancy for sexually abused. Covering rich people's crimes by throwing innocents under the bus is one of the favorite tropes in crime dramas, so police chief may also be involved. This guy was introduced for a reason, but so far is unrelated to anything in the drama. But he will be for sure. A twist could be that the guy himself kidnapped and sexually abused those girls, then covered his tracks by putting something in ML's drink and staging it like ML did it.
3. ML's policeman friend. He was also a childhood friend of those girls, it could have been him one of the girls dated in secret. He could have had the same reason for killing them as was assumed of ML.

Theories about the killer:

This is so hard to watch, especially the first episode. The injustice, the utter trashiness of people, the hypocrisy. Also, the pointlessness of some penitentiary systems - where is rehabilitation in there? All they showed was constant beatings and dehumanization of prisoners. And even after release they are considered pariahs undeserving to reintegrate into society.

It’s quite an interesting drama though aside from that, the score should be higher than it is.

Drinking FLs are a staple in every kdrama. Sexism and discrimination at work - all the time. Swearing is also becoming more frequent. Smoking, yea, not so much. As for sex, she's a mature woman who had at least 3 bfs, why not, I've seen some kdramas where the number was much higher. Buying many condoms was kinda sad because that bf had trouble getting it up and no amount of trying spared him from being dumped.
The most unconventional trait about her really is that she's petty, materialistic and way too cynical about love. But that is the fun part, perfect FLs are boring.

Oh, ok. Secretary is a more fun guy so far though. But I guess CEO's mother won't complain much when she learns 2FL is her favorite writer, lol.

Yea, well, some of this is not 100% confirmed yet, but when you've seen so many dramas you can already see where this is going just by looking at the hints.
I'd say that ML being the illigitimate chaebol son is like 99% confirmed.
Childhood connection around 70%. ML knows about FL suspiciously too much, like, for example, exactly what house she has. It's her parents house where she lived all this time. And he got some reaction when he heard about her mother.

Who are the second leads? If you mean the writer and the secretary they've clearly met before, that's why the writer girl suddenly ducked to hide herself at a fan meeting (that the fand was that chaebol wife was also funny). Writer's fans also complained about her using the same first name (secretary's) for her male heroes.
They also have funny surnames - writer's surname is Nam (namja - man), secretary's is Yeo (yeoja - woman). Secretary's boss even made fun of it - he wasn't allowed to hire a female secretary because of his father's dalliances and mother's subsequent orders, but at least he hired a secretary with a feminine surname.
There's also gonna be a spinoff drama about these characters, talking about milking to the latest drop, lol:
https://kisskh.at/771001-the-boss-s-menu-table