Tanner Dodd is an antagonist of Season Three of the TV show Justified. He is an associate of Robert Quarles who acts as a talent scout, recruiting criminals who are underutilized in their gangs. He was portrayed by Brendan McCarthy.
Biography[]
Dodd is first seen in "The Devil You Know", in which he is seen talking to Devil, a criminal working for Boyd Crowder who Dodd is attempting to recruit. He introduces Devil to Quarles and then departs, leaving Quarles to explain Dodd's role as a talent scout.
In the episode "Thick As Mud", Boyd and several associates track Dodd to a bar after discovering that Devil is working for Quarles, suspecting that Dodd recruited him. In order to make sure, Boyd calls the last number dialled on Devil's phone, and Dodd's phone rings, exposing him. Boyd tells Tanner that he killed Devil and to relay the information to Quarles, before having his cousin Johnny beat up Dodd as he leaves.
In "When The Guns Come Out", Dodd and another henchman go round to a clinic owned by Quarles to kill Doc Stern, a doctor selling oxycontin for Quarles who has started working for Boyd. They shoot and kill Rip Bell, an associate keeping guard, before entering the surgery, where they find Stern being seduced by Dodd's girlfriend Trixie. Dodd kills both of them and has the henchman take the oxy and leave. Soon after, US marshal Raylan Givens attempts to pull over the mobile oxy clinic where Dodd has set up shop. He manages to stop them, and informs Dodd that there was an eyewitness to the killings, who was hiding under a table when Dodd killed Stern. The driver then speeds away on Dodd's orders, with Raylan still inside. Raylan attacks Dodd, and during the struggle, Dodd's gun goes off and fatally shoots the driver, allowing Raylan to throw Dodd out, injuring him.
In "The Man Behind The Curtain", Dodd shows up at local crime boss Ellstin Limehouse's base, showing that he is in fact working for his deputy Errol Butler, who ordered the massacre, which Quarles in fact was not responsible for. As Errol ordered the massacre without Limehouse's permission, he has Dodd held down and threatens him with a power spray if he reveals he ordered it. Just then, Limehouse enters and orders Errol to release him. He then has Dodd go back to Quarles and tell him that he committed the massacre to get back at Boyd so that he won't kill him.
After returning to Quarles in "Watching The Detectives", Dodd uses this explanation, which convinces Quarles to let him live. He is later seen helping Tillman Napier fake an assassination attempt by Boyd via car bomb. After this succeeds, Dodd attempts to collect payment from Napier, who refuses on the grounds that Dodd blew the car up too soon and could have killed him, even though he's okay.
In his final appearance in "Loose Ends", Dodd and Errol go to Lemuel Becket's house to reclaim the money Dodd payed him for the explosives. While holding him at gunpoint, Dodd is tricked into stepping on a land mine by Becket, trapping him, as he can't move without arming it. Becket tells him he can disarm it if he lets him go, but Errol reveals that he's in fact there because Limehouse sent him to tie up the looses ends and shoots him dead. Uncaring about whether or not Dodd lives as he is also a loose end, Errol leaves him trapped on top of the mine. Pretty soon, Raylan and some other officers show up to disarm the bomb, and Dodd agrees to give Raylan information on his associates if he helps him. However, in the tension, Dodd accidently drops his gun, which lands on the mine, setting it off and blowing Dodd to pieces.