Arrow 8X1: Starling City

You guys, I was so confused when this episode started, but it ended up being so much fun. How is it possible this show is still good? At this point, we should be limping along praying for the end.

So, we start with Oliver getting rescued off the island on Earth 2. This is very similar to the pilot, but in this case Oliver is pretending to have been on the island for 12 years (the entirety of the show) and not only 5. When he gets back, Tommy is alive, Thea is dead, and his mom and Malcolm are married (I think).

His mission from Monitor is to retrieve some dark star particles (or something like that), so he dons his old hood costume, steals his mom's key card and heads over to the Queen Consolidated. Unfortunately, by the time he gets here, the particles have already been stolen and a bunch of scientists are dead. But then he is attacked by himself (well, someone else in his outfit) and Laurel ends up saving him.

She takes him to their bunker and the him of this Earth is Adrian Chase (and he's pretty mean, actually). They chat about what's going on and Oliver suggests the thief and murderer is Malcolm, but they tell him they thought so too, but cleared him. Turns out (and we find out by getting attacked by him) that the Dark Archer is actually Tommy. He's pissed that Thea died and is taking it out on the Glades.

He stole the particles to make the earthquake machine to destroy the Glades since that where Thea got the drugs that she overdosed on. Oliver convinces Tommy not to destroy the city and takes the particles to be delivered to the Monitor. On his way back, he pops in to say good bye to his mom and as he's leaving with John (oh yeah, he's here too) Earth 2 sort of just disappears. Everything just sort of vaporizes? He grabs John and Laurel and they disappear back to Earth 1.

I have no idea what happened here. A whole earth just magically vanished? This isn't a call back to something I forgot, is it? My memory sucks, but I feel like I would remember if a whole Earth disappeared.