This week’s edition of ‘Supergirl’ gives us some more background into the character of J’onn J’onzz (a.k.a. the Martian Manhunter) when a new threat to National City has J’onn/Hank re-living a tragedy in his past.

Before this week’s new baddie shows up, however, viewers finally get to meet Cat’s estranged son, Adam Foster – who’s played by Melissa Benoist’s real-life husband Blake Jenner, so… you know… I already have a reason to hate this guy. He runs into Kara and flirts with her at a coffee shop, but she doesn’t know who he is. He then pops up at the CatCo offices. As it turns out, Kara mailed a letter to him pretending to be Cat, so now son has come to visit mother, thinking she’s ready to make up for his lost childhood. Of course, Cat is none too happy about what Kara has done. She fires her for half a minute, then changes her mind. Eventually, she agrees to meet Blake for dinner to see if they can work things out.

Senator Miranda Crane (Tawny Cypress) is in town for a rally, during which she rants against aliens on Earth, including Supergirl. Her speech is interrupted by a big alien monster that grabs the Senator and carries her off. Supergirl chases after them. The monster drops the Senator but gets away.

J’onn/Hank (the characters on this show still refer to him by both names, so I’m also at a loss what to call him) reveals that the alien is a “White Martian,” from a race of underground dwellers on his home planet that enslaved the male Green Martians (of which J’onn is one) and murdered the women and children, including Hank’s wife and two daughters.

For her protection, Sen. Crane is taken back to DEO headquarters. However, thanks to some photos Jimmy Olsen took at the rally, Kara realizes that the Sen. Crane they took back to the DEO is actually the White Martian (who, like Green Martians, can also shapeshift). Kara phones Alex to tell her this, but Hank figures it out first – resulting in a fight inside DEO headquarters that I’m pretty sure ate up most of this episode’s budget. Just like she does most weeks, Supergirl shows up for Fight #1 with the alien of the week. And like most episodes, the bad guy gets the best of Supergirl and also gets away, leading to the inevitable Fight #2, where the Girl of Steel is triumphant.

While the DEO tries to figure out how to deal with this new threat, Cat’s first dinner with son Adam doesn’t go well. In fact, when his mother can’t stop talking about herself, Adam gets up and leaves. This leads to a second dinner date where Kara is asked to come along and act as a mediator between the two. Things go much better this time, and Cat is finally able to tell her son she’s sorry.

Hank and members of the DEO team track the White Martian to the city sewers, where they believe it’s holding the real Sen. Crane. Hank finds her there, but Alex gets tricked by the White Martian posing as Crane and is taken hostage. The White Martian psychically sends a message to Hank that it will happily give Alex back if he’s willing to exchange his own life in return. Although Supergirl tries to talk him out of it, Hank/J’onn believes that this is the end for him and goes to meet the White Martian out in the desert. When it looks like he’s about to allow the White Martian to kill him, Supergirl comes in and saves the day. As she gets the advantage over the alien, Hank goes to kill it, but Supergirl talks him out of it. The White Martian is taken to a prison cell at the DEO instead. It tells Hank that there are millions more just like it out there.

Back at CatCo, Kara learns from Adam that he plans to stay around for a while and also that he’d like to ask her out to dinner. Kara agrees, which is really going to tick Winn off, isn’t it? I mean, you spend day after day going to work pining over a girl you like, finally get the nerve to tell her your feelings, and she rejects you. Some new guy comes along and isn’t in town five minutes and the same girl agrees to go out with him. Women!

This episode wraps up with Kara and Alex eating ice cream and watching TV. A special report comes on about Supergirl saving someone on a bridge… except that Supergirl is on the couch eating ice cream! It looks like Maxwell Lord’s clone is finally completed, and next week Supergirl will take on the Bizarro version of herself!