Olivia’s hot date gets interrupted when she’s called in on a murder investigation. With Elliot tied up in court, and Munch having called in sick, Olivia finds herself working this case with the enigmatic Finn for the first time. The murder victim was a lab assistant who worked at a pharmaceutical company. Sexually assaulted, she was found lying dead beside her car in a desolate area of the city. And what’s even more interesting is that the dead woman has several cases of her company’s new cancer-fighting drug in the trunk of her car. Yet neither the car nor the drugs were touched by her assailant, which points to the fact that the perpetrator was only interested in his victim. Olivia and Fin discover that the lab tech was very cozy with her boss--yet when he refused to leave his wife for her, she threatened to expose illegal practices within the pharmaceutical company, making her boss a likely suspect in her slaying.

Olivia and Finn bring the boss down to the station, where they work on him in the interrogation room, until he lawyers up. Which is just as well, because Cragen comes in to give them the news that the case is being passed off onto the FBI. Apparently, there is another rape victim who was attacked by an assailant using the exact same M.O. But this time, the victim is very much alive. And when Olivia gets to speak with her, the new victim says she was sexually assaulted by a police officer from the NYPD. One of the reasons Counterfeit is an enjoyable episode is because it puts a fresh spin on things by breaking up the conventional partnerships between Benson/Stabler and Munch/Finn for the duration of the story. At first Olivia and Finn get along about as well as oil and water, with Finn refusing to believe the victim, who has already been caught in a lie.

Yet these two unlikely partners work together to solve a complex case with a truly devious culprit, and Olivia even manages to learn a few things about the normally reclusive Fin--such as the fact that he has an 18 year old son, which is something that Munch didn’t even know. The story is filled with enough great plot twists, which manage to surprise the viewer while still remaining credible, and the whole thing wraps up with a great ‘beat the clock’ finale with Fin and Olivia outthinking the villain in an ingenuous manner that’s gripping and fun to watch. Plus, on top of being well-written and well-performed, the episode throws in a really nice bonus by giving us the sight of Benson in that slinky dress in the very beginning.