Warning spoilers ahead:

This is it, the final episode of season 1 of Zane’s The Jump Off. And this ended up being the series finale as well, as no further seasons were produced. But clearly Zane must have been planning another season when she wrote this, as it ends with a major cliffhanger.

Just to give the broad strokes, some stories are wrapped up. Spencer and Nandi seem to be happy together now, although there is a hint that the nature of their jobs, where they debate relationship issues between men and women, could be a source of conflict in their relationship going forward. And Earnest and Keith’s plan comes to fruition as Chandler gets arrested and Sabrina goes running into Earnest’s arms (after he firmly rejected Portia’s attempts at reconciliation earlier). Gabriel and Aspen seem to be happy too.

But things come to a head at a surprise birthday party for Lauren that Dmitri throws at his mansion. Gisele crashes the party and reveals her fling with Woody to Kenya. This is a problem because earlier in the episode Kenya asked Woody if he’d been with anyone else while they were separated, and he lied and said no. If he’d just been honest, this could have been avoided. And Brenda’s crazy ass sneaks into the mansion and holds Lauren and Harris at gunpoint. Earnest rushes into the room and grabs Brenda and they struggle for the gun. And then from outside everyone hears a gunshot, and the episode ends with a close-up of a painting of Dmitri with blood splattered on it.

So who got shot? Will they live or die?!? I guess we’ll never know…

I can’t deny, that the ending kinda ruins the memory of this series.

I mean, overall, it’s pretty good. It was something unique for softcore TV series of this nature, in three different ways. First, most of the classic softcore series, from Red Shoe Diaries to Beverly Hills Bordello, were episodic in nature. Even when a show had recurring characters on it, each episode was a standalone story or set of stories. This was the case from the mid-1990s to 2000s. Even a series like Emmanuelle In Space, which had an ongoing narrative, was written in such a way that you could watch any random episode on its own. It was only in the 2010s that we got a few shows like LIFE ON TOP, which was basically a soap opera with continuing storylines from one episode to the next. And this was the type of show. I think some of the plots, most notably the Spencer/Nandi romance, dragged on a bit, but it was a good effort.

The second unique thing was that the show’s main characters were men. I can’t think of any other softcore show that did that. There were shows like Hot Springs Hotel and Black Tie Nights that would have a male character as the co-lead with a female character, but on this show, the five leads were all men, and the storylines all centered on their lives.

And, of course, the most unique thing about this show was its predominantly Black cast. Zane had done that before with her series Sex Chronicles (which I will review next), but these are the only two shows to have done that. I’ve lamented before the lack of Black actors and actresses in softcore films and TV shows, they’ve always been few and far between, especially in starring roles, but this series made up for that.

And much credit to director Jean Moody, specifically for how she filmed the sex scenes. This series consistently had some of the most realistic-looking sex scenes I’ve ever seen in softcore. I’ve frequently seen scenes from this show posted on Reddit with speculation that they’re “extra mile”, ie real. The guys will be grunting like they’re running a marathon, with the women moaning and screaming at the top of their lungs. We’d also see little details like the men reaching down between their legs as if they’re manually aiming their cocks inside the women. For the record, we get two sex scenes in this episode. Spencer and Nandi have sex in a sex swing that they set up in her apartment, and Earnest and Sabrina have sex on a bed.

In another indication that this series was planned to continue, in the last few minutes of the show, a new character is introduced. Gichi Gamba plays Alton Campbell, another frat member who went to college with Dmitri, Gabriel, Woody, Earnest, and Spencer, who is now a Venture Capitalist. His introduction mirrors the way the other men were introduced in the first episode, so there had to have been future plans for him. But alas it was not to be. It looks like this series was just too late, as it was released in 2013, and it was around this time that HBO and Cinemax were cutting back on their softcore programming.

Still, the effort made in the production of this series is impressive and makes the show worth watching. Chacebook rating: FOUR STARS

Jason Majercik is selling this UNRATED 4-DVD boxset of Zane’s The Jump Off season 1 for $39.99. Email him at quinn_nash@hotmail.com for his softcore inventory list