Nikki and Paulo

Nikki and Paulo
Lost characters
Nikki and Paulo on Day 72
First appearance	"Further Instructions"
Last appearance	"Exposé"
Portrayed by	Kiele Sanchez Rodrigo Santoro
Centric episode(s)	"Exposé"
Information
Full name	Nikki Fernandez & Paulo (surname unknown)
Occupation	Con artists / actress and Chef
Former residence	Los Angeles and Brazil

Nikki Fernandez and Paulo /ˈpaʊloʊ/ are fictional characters on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of over forty people after their plane crashes on a remote island somewhere in the South Pacific. American actress Kiele Sanchez and Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro play the survivors of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815.

The couple is introduced early in the third season. The producers of the show were often asked what the rest of the plane-crash survivors were doing because the show only focuses on approximately fifteen of the survivors, and the characters of Nikki and Paulo were created in response. Reaction to the characters was generally negative, with show runner, Damon Lindelof, acknowledging the couple are "universally despised" by fans. As a result of this, the couple was killed off later in the same season when they are accidentally buried alive while thought to be dead.

Originally from Brazil, Paulo is a con artist working with his American girlfriend Nikki, an actress. Paulo works as a chef for a wealthy television executive in Sydney. Nikki guest stars on the executive's show and also seduces him, which makes Paulo uncomfortable. Paulo murders the executive by poisoning his food, allowing him and Nikki to steal his bag of diamonds, which are worth $8 million. Three days later, on September 22, 2004, Nikki and Paulo board Oceanic Flight 815 to return to Nikki's home in Los Angeles.

They lose the diamonds in the plane crash and spend much of their time on the island searching for them. Paulo suspects they are the only reason for their relationship, and thus does not tell Nikki when he finds them on their thirty-third day after the crash. One day while looking in the jungle, they come across the DHARMA Initiative's Pearl Station, a scientific research station built in the early 1980s. Nikki is uninterested, but Paulo later returns by himself on his forty-ninth day on the island, hiding the diamonds in the toilet. While in the washroom, Paulo overhears two of the mysterious and dangerous island inhabitants known as the Others speak of capturing some of Paulo's fellow survivors; however, he keeps this information to himself.