'Grey's Anatomy' Season 11 Spoilers, Recap Shocker: Dr. Derek Shepherd Dies In Gruesome Accident

"Grey's Anatomy" delivered a shocker during its latest episode on Thursday night, but perhaps the bigger shock was that the spoiler was released to some Entertainment Weekly magazine subscribers in the U.S. when the magazine issue was delivered to some homes a day before the episode aired.

Word quickly leaked out via social media on Thursday afternoon after images of the upcoming issue of EW surfaced on Instagram. The issue had a photo of Patrick Dempsey, who plays Dr. Derek Shepherd, and the headline "The Doctor is...Out." Speculations quickly flew around about Dempsey's character dying or leaving the show for some reason.

Derek is one of the main characters of the show, called "Dr. McDreamy" by fans, since the show started in 2005.

Speculations heightened when ABC announced that there was a schedule change for its lineup next week, with a two-hour episode for "Grey's Anatomy" set for next week, pushing the season finale of "Scandal" to May 14 rather than May 7.

EW apologized for the spoiler with the following statement: "We are surprised that an EW subscriber may have received their issue a day earlier than planned. We always try our best to bring readers exclusive news first. We would like to apologize to fans of the show that learned the news ahead of time."

As to the reason for Dempsey's early exit from the show, even if his contract still has another year that should include him in the upcoming Season 12, it is rumored that all is not well between Dempsey and Shonda Rhimes, "Grey's Anatomy" showrunner. Past articles indicated that Rhimes was not happy about Dempsey's diva behavior, hinting that Dempsey's exit was imminent. Dempsey had also been quoted as saying that he planned to leave the show soon.

How exactly did Derek "leave" the show in the latest episode? He died in a grisly car accident, after pulling over to help some people in a car crash. After he saved them, he got back to his car, only to be smashed by an oncoming truck.

Derek's battered body was sent to a grossly incompetent hospital, where the doctors quarreled among themselves how best to save him. "I'm going to die because these people aren't properly trained," Derek told himself.

Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), his wife, arrived and agreed to pull the plug when it was clear he wasn't going to recover. So Derek died, and viewers were treated to a montage of the couple through the years, since they became each other's one-night stand when they were still strangers (during the pilot episode) until the present, when Meredith bid an emotional farewell to her husband.

How this new development will impact on Meredith and the other characters, we shall find out soon enough.