In the season-six premiere of
Mad Men, the two-part episode “The Doorway,” Jon Hamm’s Don Draper is working on an ad campaign for Royal Hawaiian Hotel. After a trip to the hotel that mixed business research with a vacation for himself and his wife Megan (Jessica Pare), and after watching their New York City building doorman nearly die before being resuscitated, all of Don’s latent self-loathing and barely hidden desire to disappear rushes forward into his proposed ad. The idea, which Don sees as a fresh start, reads to everyone else as suicidal ideation: “Hawaii. The jumping-off point.” A business suit and shoes lie discarded on a beach, and footsteps in the sand lead toward the water. “The jumping-off point”: maybe the beginning, and maybe the end. And the space in between is where