'Arrow' Season 8 Episode 2 questions the Monitor's true intentions as he reveals he willingly allowed Earth-2 to die
The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) has always been a very enigmatic figure and quite a few of his actions don't really make a lot of sense. When we first met him, he was busy destroying universes during the 'Elseworlds' crossover, ostensibly in order to find a world that's strong enough to face the Monitor's evil twin in the upcoming 'Crisis on Infinite Earths'event.
Since then, he has recruited Oliver Queen / Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) to be his personal errand boy, hopping from universe to universe, collecting people and artifacts that the Monitor needs for his master plan. So far Oliver has been willing to blindly follow the Monitor's instructions but 'Arrow' Season 8's second episode casts doubts on the cosmic entity's true intentions.
Over the course of the episode, Tatsu Yamashiro / Katana (Rila Fukushima), who knows about the Monitor from her time with the Crescent Order, questions Oliver's blind faith in the being. By the end of the episode, Oliver himself begins to doubt the Monitor's plan and decides to find answers.
Tatsu's hesitation to trust the Monitor is quite understandable. In the episode, he tasks Oliver with finding a certain scientist who is working on recreating the deadly Alpha-Omega virus. The cosmic being doesn't offer any explanation to Oliver and even chastises him for stopping to prevent the destruction of Starling City while he was on Earth-2. However, the biggest revelation about the Monitor comes at the end of the episode when it is revealed that Lyla Michaels (Audrey Marie Anderson) has been working with the Monitor for a very long time. As the Monitor reveals, both he and Lyla knew that Earth-2 would be destroyed, so it's even possible that the Monitor may have caused the destruction of the parallel universe as a lesson of some sort to prepare Oliver for the coming 'Crisis'.
Right now, we don't have much choice but to trust that the Monitor's ultimate plan is for the betterment of the multiverse at large but he's already made it clear that he doesn't mind sacrificing entire worlds in order to achieve his goals. Whether the ends justify the means is something we'll only find out once 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' finally arrives on screens.
'Arrow' Season 8 Episode 3 will air on The CW October 29 at 9 PM ET.