Home Alone 2: Lost in New York has never had the cultural pull of its predecessor, though not for lack of trying. Indeed, it’s pretty much the first film, with almost every beat replaced by some Big Apple counterpart. Then again, maybe that explains its lowly rep. But it’s remained a holiday staple, despite or maybe even because of the cameo from You Know Who. And its stature is such that it even got parodied on SNL, with host Kristen Wiig stepping into the shoes of the beloved “Pigeon Lady” who some people recently thought — erroneously, alas — was Piers Morgan. (In fact, she was played by Oscar-winner Brenda Fricker.)
The sketch imagined an alternate ending to the movie, in which Melissa Villaseñor played Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister opposite Wiig’s Pigeon Lady. In the movie, she’s the sequel’s equivalent of the old next door neighbor from the original: a figure of fright who turns out to be a savior. But the parody savages one unremarked-upon aspect of the film: Kevin, the scion of upper middle class parents, armed with a portion of his dad’s wealth, really could have gotten her a room at the Plaza, too.
And so Villaseñor’s Kevin remains oblivious to the desperation of Wiig’s Pigeon Lady, who keeps hoping he’ll at least give her some of that limo pizza. Kevin eventually catches on, but it’s too late: the Wet-turned-Sticky Bandits — Kyle Mooney doing Joe Pesci and Mickey Day doing Daniel Stern — arrive, stealing the kid’s riches. But instead of simply incapicatating them, as she does in the movie, Wiig’s Pigeon Lady bashes them to bloody death.
It’s reminiscent of another famous SNL alternate ending: the one they did for It’s a Wonderful Life, which concludes with Dana Carvey’s George Bailey learning that Jon Lovitz’s Mr. Potter was the one who took his money, leading an angry mob to his home, and beating him to death, all while the townsfolk continue to sing “Auld Lang Syne.”
You can watch the sketch above.
