Despite the outrage that fans felt for Shonda Rimes when she decided to kill off Patrick Dempsey's Derek Shepherd, it seems that it was not as shocking for those who are actively looking for clues. According to Entertainment Weekly, episodes leading up to last Thursday's "How to Save a Life" already had a lot of foreshadowing, but fans either chose to keep their hopes up, or are hopelessly naive about it.

After all, as the outlet noted, Derek almost died after he got shot by a gunman, and he even survived a plane crash --- there is no way he could just die.

However there were a lot of times that his impending death had been hinted, and here are some of them, as noted by EW:

Season 11, Episode 18: When Derek said he's been missing out on too many in his life.

He said, "I've been missing out on everything in my life. I'm watching my kids grow up on the computer. I don't want to miss my family. I don't want to miss another second. I want to coach, go to ballet recitals."

Season 11, Episode 19: When Meredith already sort of knew that her days with Derek are numbered by saying, "I just wish, I don't know, you could stay or I could come with you or something."

Season 11, Episode 20: In TV, the moment you want more, things get taken away from you, so when Derek told Meredith he wanted more, fans should have known about the consequences. He told her, "Remember ages ago, you and I had a really big fight? And I told you, I said, you were like coming up for fresh air. Like I was drowning and you saved me. I still feel that way, when I see you, what we have, our family. That's the feeling... that it's always been you. And I want more. Of this. Of us. I want to have more. Let's have more. I mean it."

Season 11, Episode 21: If you're as good as Derek is at his job, you'd know he's right. So when his inner monologue said, "I'm going to die because these people aren't properly trained," you know there's not much to go on.

But while those episodes have been hinting at Derek's death, what does actress Ellen Pompeo think about losing her fictional husband? Through her Twitter page, she told fans,

Happy Monday! pic.twitter.com/dSnfKPLQl7

— Ellen Pompeo (@EllenPompeo) April 27, 2015