A toast to Succession's 10 most cringeworthy speeches, ranked from least to most wild

Logan Roy yelling about the scope of media while standing on a tiny stool in a newsroom. Trust me, this feels the most cringe personally. In a broader Succession scale, his waxing poetic about loving the news is cringe when you consider how much he decides it as opposed to simply reporting it. He starts when Tom calls him “The Big Man” and invites him to address the journalists, and Logan can’t help but begin by essentially yelling at them about the 40 percent rise in costs. He really does have a knack for making people uncomfortable while “praising” them. In this moment, the episode two closer, he talks about how much he loves Waystar and plans to spend more time there. “I want to be cutting their throats,” he says of their rivals while screaming at the top of his lungs. It’s cringe because it sounds exactly as unrealistic as you’d expect—an old white man assuming he’s on top of the world and can dictate how his place of work should function. His desire to stick around doesn’t last long, of course, because Logan drops dead on the plane an episode later. At least Succession let Cox rip one out for the last time before he left the show. [Saloni Gajjar]

Logan’s funeral was bound to have memorable speeches. How else can you bid goodbye to a man and character who was larger than life? “Church And State” doesn’t disappoint. James Cromwell takes the stage first, and while everyone fears what he’ll rattle off about his brother (Greg couldn’t even cut off his legs to stop him, pfft), all Ewan does is paint a brutally honest picture of Logan. Similarly, Shiv’s short goodbye to him feels direct and honest. Kendall goes off the rails, yes, but it’s less cringeworthy, more pathetic and sad, with a perfect snot spot running down his nose. The worst, and most cringe of them all, is Roman’s speech that, thankfully, only the show’s audience gets to witness. The hour begins with Rome at home, preparing to say words about how Logan Roy was great “in every sense of the word.” He’s pumping himself and his father up as best he can. You can only watch through your fingers as he narrates what to say about his dead dad, pacing from room to room, staring himself in each mirror, struggling to face himself in Logan’s absence. He can’t stay still, breathe, and comprehend for one second that his father’s gone. His speech is gutting but also very Rome-like, in that he continues wanting to be like Logan. No wonder his world crumbles when he’s staring at the coffin from the podium—he had no choice but to comprehend, and then no one in his world (but us) hears “Roman the showman light up the sky.” Well, it was good enough to be on this cringe list, so good job there. [Saloni Gajjar]

Dropped 40 minutes into one of Succession’s most blistering hours, Connor’s vapid, vindictive, vaguely threatening concession speech cemented what we’ve long known: Alan Ruck is the star of this show. Connor spends his final chat with the American people (who flunked it) in a constant state of punch-up, tacking on excuses as he drowns in flop sweat. Whether it be that woman, a reminder that he’s a billionaire (sorry!), or the heightening from his first running mate to “had I not had to replace her,” Ruck plays all sides, from hurt to angry to optimistic, before landing on a cryptic “The Con-heads are coming.” Frank’s lay-up, “Connor was running for president,” is the clincher. Cringey as it may be, Connor’s concession speech is a remarkable bit of comedy. [Matt Schimkowitz]

A performance so bad it heralded the immortal Fisher Stevens line, “What’s it like being married to a man with two assholes?” Tom’s appearance before Congress near the end of the show’s second season is a reminder that, for all his claims to redwood-esque genitalia, Mr. Wambsgans folds like cardboard under the lightest of pressures. Tom’s testimony while he’s being grilled by Eric Bogosian’s endlessly dry Sen. Gil Eavis isn’t so much a speech as a total failure to make one; the best he can do, flop sweat flying from every pore, is weakly admit that serial abuser Lester “Mo” McClintock seemed “a bit creepy,” and do a quick take back when he outright perjures himself about knowing Greg. (Whose own, quasi-deranged performance at the same hearing at the start of the next episode we can toss in here as a bonus speech: if it is to be said; if it is to be said, so it be, so it is.) [William Hughes]

How can someone lose when they’re already chose? Allow Kendall Roy to elucidate that with the ill-fated rap song affectionately known among the fandom as “L to the OG.” Ken-W.A’s extra special gift for a party celebrating the 50th anniversary of Logan founding Waystar-Royco, the rap starts off confusing and ends up genuinely unforgettable, leaving even Gerri (who has seen everything) agog and serving as one of the most regrettable public decisions Kendall has made to date. And this is the man that threw that birthday party!Wearing an “LOG” emblazoned Yankees jersey before friends, foes, and family members alike, Kendall raps for Logan over a beat his “boy” Squiggle “cooked up,” a piano beat so jarring it leads Roman’s date to enquire: “Is he going to strip?” Although Kendall doesn’t literally strip (aside from the eye-roll moment when he removes his suit and bow tie to reveal his Logan-themed casual wear) during the performance, he certainly strips away any decorum he has with the roughly minute-long ode to Logan, which includes the mercilessly fate tempting line: “Fuck Father Time.” Hey, at least Cousin Greg liked it. [Hattie Lindert]

Although he didn’t get the ridiculous clouds he wanted (he saw them in Berlin), in this season’s “Living+,” Ken still managed, even with a bare-bones stage, to give one of the cringiest openings to any speech that’s been on this show. Donning a flight jacket—we repeat, a flight jacket—he begins: “Hey, uh, yeah. Big shoes. Big big shoes. Big big shoes.” (Roman’s on-point response: “Big shoes. Big hat. Big nervous breakdown.”) And then, after bragging about now being CEO, he segues to this: “It means a lot. Isn’t that right, Dad?” And then there he is, onscreen and towering above the audience and Ken: his recently deceased father, who’s been digitally altered into doing a … comedy routine? Ken’s speech went on to land, but that stunt was truly tough to watch. [Tim Lowery]