"The Doorway" is the two-part sixth season premiere of the American television drama series Mad Men.
The episodes originally aired back-to-back as a feature-length premier on the AMC channel in the United States on April 7, 2013.
The episode opens with a point of view shot of "Jonesy" (Ray Abruzzo), the Drapers' doorman, in the throes of a heart attack.
Don (Jon Hamm) is lying on a Hawaiian beach reading Dante's Inferno, along with Megan (Jessica Paré).
Back at home with Henry (Christopher Stanley), Bobby, and Gene, Sandy - who says she is going to Juilliard - shows off her skill at playing the violin, performing the popular Nocturne in E-flat Major, Op.
Later, while in bed, Betty teases Henry about his leering at Sandy while she played the violin, and shocks him by jokingly offering to help him gag and rape the girl.
In the middle of the night, Betty gets up to make a snack and finds Sandy in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette and unable to sleep.
Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), now living with her boyfriend Abe, receives a late-night call from Bert Peterson from Cutler Gleason and Chaough.
A comic appearing on The Tonight Show has made jokes about American soldiers in Vietnam cutting off Viet Cong soldiers' ears and wearing them around their necks like trophies, rendering CGC's planned Super Bowl commercial for Koss headphones (featuring the slogan "Lend Me Your Ears") potentially too controversial.
Roger Sterling (John Slattery) is now seeing a psychiatrist, and during a session he discusses a new love interest, as well as his feelings that his employees respect him but don't really know or care about him.
At the office Don finds the copywriting team (now openly smoking marijuana), hoping for feedback about his trip to inspire a concept for the Royal Hawaiian pitch.
Don meets with a few of the new copywriters and criticizes their ideas for advertising a Dow oven cleaner; he's particularly concerned with the trivialization of the "love" construct.
The doctor lets Don in on the New Year's Eve plans their wives have been making, sharing that he'd instructed his wife, Sylvia, to "keep it in the building."
In Don's office, while the photographers are attempting to capture him in his element, he lights up a cigarette and realizes he's still holding onto PFC Dinkins' Zippo lighter, which bears the inscription: "IN LIFE WE OFTEN HAVE TO DO THINGS THAT JUST ARE NOT OUR BAG.
At home, Megan wakes Don to tell him she's been called in to work today, and for the rest of the week; this will cause her to miss Roger's mother's funeral, which she regrets.
As the woman speaks about Roger's mother's devotion to him, Don vomits into an umbrella stand, so Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton), Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), and Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) escort him out of the room.
Before the eulogy can resume, Roger confronts Mona's husband for appearing uninvited, and quickly loses his temper and starts shouting at them.
Megan finds a hungover Don in bed, where she left him earlier, and reports that her character "pushed Derek's mother down the stairs" on the soap opera.
At the first meeting with the Sheraton people, Don shows them the ad: a drawing of shoes, a suit coat, and a tie with footprints next to it leading into the ocean.
Don heads back in, and promptly goes to bed with Arnold's wife, Sylvia (Linda Cardellini), who had given him Dante's Inferno to read while in Hawaii.
Allusions to Dante's Inferno are abundant throughout the episode, including Don's reading the book while lying on Waikiki Beach, next to Megan.
Writes Chicago Sun-Times critic Lori Rackl: "The episode is permeated with the first installment of the Italian poet's "Divine Comedy," a three-part allegorical journey through the afterlife.
Don is a '60s version of Dante, trapped in the depths of hell, searching for his Virgil to guide him along the virtuous path that leads to eternal paradise.
"[3] Rackl further observes, Don opens the scene by reading "a line from Dante's allegorical tale: 'Midway in our life's journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood,' he says."
She continues: "This opener dovetails with the season five finale, when a tempting female stranger in a dark bar asks Don that pivotal question: 'Are you alone?'"
Principal photography for the episode began in October 2012, with Jon Hamm and Jessica Paré filming scenes in Hawaii.
"[7] Lori Rackl of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "Packed with symbolism and cryptic, thought-provoking fodder, the sublime two-hour episode could be the subject of a college course.
Club graded the double episode "A−" and observed: "This is still one of TV’s best shows, still moving confidently and at the height of its powers, filled with great characters and terrific storytelling.
It’s been on the air long enough now to have a rich, complicated history of its own, and watching it all spool out—both as it happened and in the changed visages of the characters—continues to be one of TV’s chief pleasures.
Increasingly, though, it’s taking advantage of its own history, something that gives it a richness and depth most shows on TV barely even aspire to.