When Xena somersaults in front of a fleeing Meleager her hands are empty but when she lands her sword is in her right hand.
The town square gallows with an elaborate trap door mechanism is a 19th-century invention, too advanced for any of Xena's ambiguous time periods. The use of such an anachronistic device was perhaps mandated by the Meleager character's origin as an analogy for a prototypical lone gunslinger from the Wild West.