Bree's main struggle throughout the series was her attempts to maintain a perfect life despite various obstacles such as widowhood, divorce, and alcoholism hindering her.

She married Rex Van de Kamp (Steven Culp), Orson Hodge (Kyle MacLachlan), and Trip Weston (Scott Bakula) and had relationships with various other men.

Bree Mason grew up in Rhode Island when her father married a woman named Eleanor, after her mother's death, with whom she did not get along.

Bree is known for her homemaking talents at the level of Martha Stewart, particularly her gourmet meals, breakfast treats, and pineapple bran muffins.

Bree supports the Republican Party, as stated in the season 3 opener, and was also known for being a member of the local Presbyterian church, as seen in the episode, Sunday.

Appearing only as a stand-in in "My Husband, The Pig", Bree is totally absent in its six following episodes ("Dress Big", "Liaisons", "God, That's Good", "Gossip", "Into the Woods", and "What Would We Do Without You?")

[7] Eleanor said to her stepdaughter that she was very lucky and possessed beauty, wit, cunning, and insight: weapons all women needed to survive in the world.

[12] Bree was first engaged to her boyfriend, Ty Grant, but after she met Rex Van de Kamp, the two fell in love during their college years.

However, it becomes apparent that her emotional coldness and obsession with appearances makes her family resent her, and as her husband Rex puts it, "I just can't live in this detergent commercial anymore".

Initially wanting to hurt him, Bree starts dating their pharmacist, George Williams (Roger Bart), but ends things when Rex asks her to give their marriage another chance.

In denial, but not wanting Andrew to get his trust fund or give up on him, Bree joins Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) but only takes it seriously after passing out in a shop changing room and not waking up until late at night.

Bree's mental health deteriorates rapidly following this and nobody can help her as her behavior becomes erratic and spirals out of control, including creating a scene at Danielle's birthday party.

Bree confronts Matthew about Melanie and refuses to let them leave, so he threatens to shoot her, only to be shot dead by a police sniper.

In the season finale, Katherine saves Bree's life by telling her ex-husband, Wayne Davis (Gary Cole), her secrets.

When the events of the series shift ahead by five years in the fourth-season finale, it is revealed that Bree is now a famous cookbook author, and Andrew works with her as her assistant.

Stunned, Orson tells Bree that he wouldn't send her to prison for fraud and goes to pack, but discovers her affair with Karl when Karl confesses to him at the annual Wisteria Lane Christmas block party, in part due to the fact that he'd hired a plane to fly a banner over the party with a message asking Bree to marry him.

In the season finale, Bree does try firing Sam but he retaliates by revealing he's found out about Andrew's hit-and-run years before (a drunken Danielle told him).

After discovering her ex-husband has a new girlfriend only a week after they separated, Bree decides to redecorate the ground floor of her house, hiring Keith Watson (Brian Austin Green) to help, but finds herself attracted to him.

This triggers fear and panic among the rioters and supporters for the halfway house alike, thinking this is an assassination attempt, culminating in a human stampede that spirals out of control.

While the Solises are staying with Bree, she has a run-in with Detective Chuck Vance (Jonathan Cake), who was on Wisteria Lane to check on parolee Felicia Tillman.

She spearheads the decision to cover up the murder to protect Carlos, thus earning his forgiveness for keeping the secret about his mother's hit-and-run for all those years.

However, he later calls her back, urging her to tell the other housewives to spare her Mary Alice's fate and reveals to her the only other person who he told about the note to was the cop who was looking into Martha Huber's death, Chuck.

Danielle returns, having been dumped by her husband, and Bree is at first supportive until she finds out her daughter is now selling adult swings to make money.

Having avoided church over her guilt in hiding Alejandro, Bree is convinced to help Ben Faulkner in cooking for a soup kitchen.

[17] At the commencement of the second season, Bree was widely considered the series' most prominent character,[18] following the first year's emphasis on Susan Mayer.

[19] Though a drop in quality was noted in the second season,[20] Bree's battles with alcohol, her teenage son, and her murderous pharmacist lover, while continuing to deal with the death of her husband, were well received and considered the focal point of the series in light of the lagging Applewhite mystery.

Following the five-year leap, a new direction was taken with Bree's character as she made the transition from housewife to author/businesswoman, a development which received positive reception.

[26] This change in character development was continued into season 6, with another side to Bree's personality being shown, which includes an affair with Karl Mayer.

Critics lauded the comic relief provided by these developments,[26] as well as the more poignant and emotional turn mid-season as Bree deals with Orson's paralysis.

In 2005, Cross was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series[30] for her performance in the season one episode, "Running to Stand Still".