Arriving at the EU summit this week, Theresa May had that purposeful air of a school superintendent walking up the drive to the Addams family mansion, determined that Wednesday and Pugsley should be enrolled in a conventional educational establishment without delay. Some long hours later, May staggered back down the drive much as that school superintendent might, short of having no shoes and an actual bat in her electrocuted hair.

And so to the latest scenes in the Brexit farce. The formula for successful farce-writing, as laid down in the 19th century, is to get your character up a tree in the first act, throw stones at them in the second, then get them down in the third. As far as Brexit goes, the UK went up the tree voluntarily, and has now been throwing human waste at itself for two and a half years. Does anyone want to come and get us down? Sorry, it’s quite … disgusting up here now.

We have been given a fortnight’s grace to get our shit together – which was almost the formal wording on the communique

My sole point of light this week was being told that David Cameron had finished his memoir – and that the publishers want him to cut 100,000 words from it. No idea what that takes this coolly anticipated opus down to, but given that Geri Halliwell had published two autobiographies by the age of 30, something more truncated would feel commensurate with the former prime minister’s contribution.

Back to Brussels, though, and a reminder that one of the remarkable things about the UK’s take on these negotiations has been the oft-stated belief that the EU will save us at the 11th hour. That’s never quite how the likes of weekend warrior David Davis used to put it, naturally – but we were forever being told that Brussels would cave, that we just needed to hold our nerve, that this is how they work. Two quick points on that: 1. Why have so many Brexiteers been the sort of crap movie villains who boast about their secret plan out loud, in full, in advance of actually executing it? 2. Well done, you congenitally incompetent, dick-waving amateurs. It’s impossible to read about looming bog-roll shortages and not think, “Wow. We really do hold all the cards.”

Seven days from Britain crashing out without a deal, the EU used the summit to take back control. We have been given a fortnight’s extra grace to get our shit together – which was almost the formal wording on the communique. The anonymous briefing from the EU side was marginally less forgiving than napalm warfare. “It was 90 minutes of nothing,” one EU source said of May’s performance. “She didn’t even give clarity if she was organising a vote. Asked three times what she would do if she lost the vote, she couldn’t say. It was fucking awful. Dreadful. Evasive even by her standards.”

But enough of the more positive comments. The negative ones are summarised by the briefing’s observation on May: “Instead of three days until 29 March to deal with her resignation, we have 15 days to prepare.” Oof. This is the equivalent of lying on your deathbed and hearing your relatives discuss how many finger sandwiches are honestly going to be needed for the wake. Let’s not over-cater, you know?

Play Video 1:24 Comic relief: three times actual laughs were had at Brexit summit – video

Sequels-wise, we’re in uncharted territory as far as Meaningful Vote 3 goes. Even the Weekend at Bernie’s franchise didn’t exhume the corpse for a third time. The soon to be outgoing prime minister has belatedly realised that she needs the MPs she insulted on Wednesday, and consequently acknowledged on Thursday that “MPs are frustrated too”. One of those moments where “I’m a strategically defunct tin-eared lunatic” seems to be the hardest word.

The withdrawal agreement’s first hurdle is that Speaker John Bercow has said it can’t be brought before the house in its previous form. “You respect the referee and abide by his decisions,” judged Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay, with all the moral heft John Terry might bring to such a statement. Inevitably, then, MPs will find some sort of procedural way to do it, probably paving the way for the deal to die horribly again, before proceeding to indicative votes for various options. There are no good options, but some are rather less catastrophic than others.

According to Tory MP Nick Boles, who’s pushing one or other of said options: “I guess we will discover next week whether the Conservative party still wants to be the party of business.” Incredible use of “still”, there. I don’t want to be a bitch, but I feel like the Conservative party probably lost that Kitemark in the week no-deal planners were forced to reopen an effing nuclear bunker under the Ministry of Defence. Thanks for your pitch, Tories – but for that reason, the Dragons are out. Also, you might want to press pause on those “natural party of government” mouse mats you had ordered for sale at party conference. I think the printers will be OK with it – they’re subletting the warehouse space to stockpile insulin and stuff.

Brexit: DUP accuses May of being 'far too willing to capitulate' to EU – live news Read more

According to ERG vice-chair Steve Baker, meanwhile, “The wrong Conservatives have the levers of power.” The wrong Conservatives … mmmmm. Go on, Steve. “National humiliation is imminent through these ‘indicative votes’.” Imminent?! Never mind Boles’s “still” – take a look at Steve Baker’s “imminent”. Have you ever seen anything as preposterously, forlornly belated as that “imminent”?

I’m afraid it would understate matters to compare this to Rose shivering on the door at the end of Titanic, and observing mildly that an iceberg might be “imminent”. No, on balance, this makes Steve the most disastrous baker since the one who set fire to London in 1666, who I suppose we now have to picture wandering through the smouldering remains of the capital and judging that the time to switch his oven off is “imminent”. Whichever way it pans out, next week’s political weather forecast promises some sort of conflagration. Do, please, adjust your “national humiliation” preparations accordingly.

• Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist