Season 1 Julie usually helps Susan deal with problems regarding Susan's love life, and helps to care for her mother after her divorce. She is briefly romantically involved with
Zach Young (
Cody Kasch), the troubled son of Susan's friend,
Mary Alice (
Brenda Strong). She harbors Zach in her room when he escapes from the mental institution Paul has sent him to. Susan eventually finds Zach and sends him home, which Julie considers an act of betrayal. Soon after, Julie breaks up with Zach because of his sadistic mentality.
Season 2 During the second season, Julie expresses concern over Susan's remarriage to her father Karl, but agrees to it because she wants Susan to have her surgery to remove her wandering spleen. Julie recognizes that Zach has changed and rekindles their romance. As an act of kindness towards Zach and
Mike Delfino (
James Denton), she invites Zach bowling with them, to try to help Mike and Zach bond. Their friendship is ruined when Zach's father,
Paul Young (
Mark Moses), forbids him from speaking to Julie, fearing he will discover Mike is his biological father. Julie catches Susan in bed with Karl, and she is forced to sleep in a small van with Susan when their house is burned down by
Edie Britt (
Nicollette Sheridan). Karl buys them a new house, but Susan refuses, eventually moving back to their house in season 3.
Season 3 In the beginning of the third season, Julie meets Edie's nephew,
Austin McCann (
Josh Henderson), whom she likes but does not want to admit it. Edie soon tells Julie that Austin is bad news and that she should not get attached. After the two of them, plus Edie and Lynette, are held hostage by Carolyn Bigsby (
Laurie Metcalf) in a supermarket, they begin dating. Julie loses her virginity to Austin, realizing that the relationship has to move forward if she wants to keep dating him. Unfortunately, her mother and Edie catch Austin having sex with
Danielle Van de Kamp (
Joy Lauren). Susan informs Julie about this, and she decides to break up with him. Eventually Julie agrees to give him a second chance, but when Danielle learns that she is pregnant with his child,
Orson Hodge (
Kyle MacLachlan) insists Austin leave town.
Season 4 In the fourth season premiere, Julie is reunited with her childhood best friend,
Dylan Mayfair (
Lyndsy Fonseca), when Dylan and her family return to the street after twelve years of being absent. However Dylan does not remember Julie or ever living on Wisteria Lane. Julie becomes suspicious of Dylan. Julie tells Susan that Dylan is not the same girl as she was years ago when they were best friends. It is revealed that Julie is right, as the real Dylan had been crushed to death by a wardrobe and buried just before
Katherine Mayfair (
Dana Delany) left Fairview. Julie also adjusts to having Mike as her stepfather. When Julie begins dating a questionable boy named Derek, who has many piercings, Susan tries to fix her up with a young man who turns up at the house looking for Mike. However, Susan quickly breaks the relationship up when she finds out that the young man is in fact Mike's drug dealer. In the
fourth-season finale, Julie is accepted to
Princeton University. One of the professors is so impressed by her senior thesis that she is offered a summer internship, and she leaves to attend college.
Season 5 After the five-year time jump, Julie reappears in the episode "
City on Fire" and introduces Susan to her boyfriend, her college professor, Lloyd (
Steven Weber), a 40-year-old man who has been married 3 times. Lloyd proposes to Julie but she rejects him, stating that she does not believe in marriage, following her mother's string of bad luck. Susan explains to Julie how much she believes in marriage and the two share a hug.
Season 6 Julie returns to Wisteria Lane for the summer to help her mother with her upcoming wedding. During this time, she forms a relationship with
Danny Bolen (
Beau Mirchoff), who has moved in across the street with his parents. The relationship is turbulent and short-lived. When Julie is strangled outside her house and ends up comatose, Danny is the prime suspect. As the other characters work to reveal the identity of Julie's attacker, an affair she was having with Danny's father,
Nick (
Jeffrey Nordling), and a pregnancy scare prior to the attack are exposed. Several months after waking up from her coma, Julie decides to visit relatives on the East Coast until her attacker is caught. In the episode "
Epiphany", Julie's attacker is revealed to be
Eddie Orlofsky (
Josh Zuckerman), who attacked her mistaking her for Susan.
Season 7 Julie is not seen again until the
seventh season episode "
Where Do I Belong" when she visits Susan in the hospital after her kidney has been removed. She offers to donate her kidney to Susan, but she is not a match.
Season 8 Julie, who is working toward a
Ph.D., reveals that she is six months pregnant. She plans to give her daughter up for adoption, hoping to spare herself and her child the drama that she experienced while being raised by a single mother. Later, Susan learns that the baby's father is
Porter Scavo (
Charlie Carver), son of her friend
Lynette (
Felicity Huffman). Despite Julie's insistence, Porter refuses to let her put their daughter up for adoption, planning to raise her himself. Eventually, Julie decides to keep the baby. Julie's baby is born in the same day of
Renee Perry's wedding and
Karen McCluskey's death, in the
series finale. ==Reception==